Religious Fundamentalism in an Age of Conflict [1 ed.] 1527585980, 9781527585980

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Religious Fundamentalism in an Age of Conflict

Religious Fundamentalism in an Age of Conflict Edited by

David Makofsky and Bayram Unal

Religious Fundamentalism in an Age of Conflict Edited by David Makofsky and Bayram Unal This book first published 2022 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2022 by David Makofsky, Bayram Unal and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-8598-0 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-8598-0

In Memory of David Makofsky, Our friend, colleague, comrade, The originator of the book With the sadness of not being able to see your biggest dream come true

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Overview ........................................................................................... 1 Religious Fundamentalism in an Age of Conflict: Christianity, Judaism and Islam in the New Era of Globalism David Makofsky and Bayram Ünal Jewish Fundamentalism, Muslim Fundamentalism Compared: What Do We Learn? ................................................................................. 29 David Makofsky On the Limitations of Democracy as a Political System .......................... 69 Hakan Köni The Religious Right and Race .................................................................. 81 Jack M. Bloom The Good Thing about Sectarianism? An Intersectional Approach to Social Class and Sectarian Identity in Northern Ireland ....................... 93 Gordon Ramsey Sectarianism and Supremacism .............................................................. 135 Dr Abraham Weizfeld PHD The Formation of Identity: Case Study .................................................. 161 Bayram Unal and David Makofsky

OVERVIEW RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM IN AN AGE OF CONFLICT: CHRISTIANITY, JUDAISM AND ISLAM IN THE NEW ERA OF GLOBALISM DAVID MAKOFSKY ADJUNCT PROFESSOR, SOCIOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY INDIANA UNIVERSITY NORTHWEST

AND BAYRAM ÜNAL PROFESSOR, SOCIOLOGY, NIGDE UNIVERSITY

I The Goal of this Investigation This is a book of investigations by an international group of scholars who look into the rise of religious fundamentalism and identity movements that have their origins in the great wars of the twentieth century: World Wars I and II (1914–1945) and the Cold War between Russia and the United States (1945–1989). The post-twentieth century conflicts, those of a new era, have been defined quite unexpectedly in religious terms, and involve three sources of faith and identity, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. This new era is very strongly influenced by what in the West has been called populism, but might also be called a version of working-class politics. Because these movements are religious in character, it is interesting that fundamentalist forms of religion have played a major role: “fundamentalism” is a term that will be defined in Section IV of this overview. Members of fundamentalist movements are not strictly from the working class, but leaders employ a relatively authoritarian religious message that they hope will appeal to the working class, in contrast to a liberal or pluralist appeal to religion.

Overview

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These are the social movements with a religious character that appeared after the great wars and the collapse of the Soviet Union: •

The increasing political/cultural role of Muslim working classes in their period of industrialization and modernization, and the increasing political/cultural role of Muslims in response to the most recent Western invasion of the Islamic world after the end of World War II. These movements had their origins during European colonial expansion in the nineteenth century.

•

The appearance of an aggressive, expansionist, and nuclear-armed Jewish Zionist state following the 1967 war, intent on stopping not only Palestinian nationalism, but also intent on preventing any of its Muslim neighbors from entering the nuclear age.

•

The anger and shock of the white Protestant evangelical population to a variety of events: the aftermath of the fall of the apartheid-based regime in South Africa; the emergence of Sinn Fein as a major political party in Ulster, UK; the successes of the Civil Rights, abortion rights, and gay rights movements in the United States; and the international rise of Islam.

Our group contains a range of scholars writing case studies concerning the general topic of religious fundamentalism and social change. The group includes two Turkish scholars, Hakan Koni and Bayram Unal; two American scholars, Jack Bloom and David Makofsky; a Canadian scholar, Abraham Weizfeld; and a scholar in from the UK, Gordon Ramsey.

II The Crisis in The Post-Twentieth Century Era The British Labour historian, E.J. Hobsbawm and his followers spoke of “the long nineteenth century”—a continuation of the superficial stability seen in the late 1800s, which in 1914 was finally shattered by World War I. This was the period when the industrial process in Europe led to the creation of socialist political parties and the modern state.

II.I - The Religious/Identity Nature of the Crisis "Almost two decades into the twenty-first century, we are now experiencing a comparable breakdown of the verities with which many of us grew up (Kallir, 2018)." Faith in the general prosperity of the period that followed

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World War II has vanished, although this varies in different regions of the world. "The so-called post-war consensus that led to the formation of the European Union and its attendant international alliances is starting to unravel, partly as a result of the dissolution of the Soviet Union (Kallir, 2018)." During the period of the Cold War, NATO-allied governments subordinated internal crises by focusing on the “struggle against communism”. Following the 9–11 attack in the USA in 2001, Western interventions in the Middle East and Central Asia have been accompanied by two decades of revolution and civil war without any sign of an immediate conclusion. "Nativist anti-immigrant movements have gained traction in countries (including the United States) formerly considered bastions of human rights. Income inequality has risen to extremes not witnessed since the 1920s (Piketty, 2014; Cassidy, 2014: chart 1)." Far from being immune to these external stressors, the religious leaders and their institutions demonstrate that they are at the center of the larger socio-economic forces that determine the future. There have been great religious wars throughout history. The popular movements that linked ethnicity and religion dominated the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, and employed ideas that were thought to be part of the past, not the modern world. After Hitler and the Axis powers were defeated in 1945, many academics believed that a culture of “secular-friendly liberal democracy” had triumphed over a culture of “illiberal religious and national identity”. This was a period of optimism, but the victory actually set those opposed to pluralism back for only fifty years. The ethno-nationalist forces that propelled Italian Fascism and German National Socialism had been defeated, but only to emerge in different forms throughout Western and Central Europe, the United States, and in many societies in Asia. Quite unexpectedly, in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, a rise of religious and religious-nationalist forces, and the persistent threat of war and violence have again surfaced. The investigators in our effort find that, within each of the major traditions, there has been an upsurge of right wing (that is, opposing liberal pluralism) religious identity groups. For example, evangelical Protestantism in the United States: (from Bloom, “The Religious Right and Race”): It is clear that the right is ascendant in the United States, and that it has been for some time now. This trend has an economic, class dimension, especially

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Overview in its modern incarnation in the Trump Administration: namely, an ideological insistence upon redistributing wealth by lowering taxes on the wealthy and cutting back on social safety net programs for the poor and middle classes. Included has been a redrawing of the rules to make the wealthy more able to use their wealth to shape political life. This program has also had a racial dimension that has included attacks upon affirmative action programs and seeking to diminish minority-and-generallyDemocratic-leaning voter participation by means of voter IDs, purging of the voter registration rolls and extreme gerrymandering in the several states the Republican Party controls, as well as gutting of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. As a result, the right’s incarnation in the Republican Party has made that party almost exclusively occupied by whites. One of the remarkable features of the growing power of the conservative movement is how important the religious right has been in its development.

On Contemporary Islam (from Makofsky, “Jewish Fundamentalism, Muslim Fundamentalism”): In an influential article, “The Task of Liberal Theory after September 11”, J. Judd Owen (2004:25) puts forth as the principle issue of the new millennium: “the single most profound theoretical challenge since liberalism’s origins ... is ... the challenge of illiberal revealed theology.” Judd raises this issue when discussing the Islamic theorist Sayyid Qutb, the leading theorist associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, from his work Milestones (2003). Are these claims to be made only about Qutb and the Muslim Brotherhood? As we show in this volume, the issue extends far beyond Islam.

On Judaism, in Israel, speaking of the rise of a violent settler movement (Makofsky, “Jewish Fundamentalism, Muslim Fundamentalism”): It was found that members of a little-known organization, Gush Emunim were reported to be responsible for a plan to blow up the Muslim Dome of the Rock on Temple Mount, and for a score of lesser acts of violence against Arabs. What was surprising in April 1984 was not so much existence of the terror group as the identity of its members, many of whom were associated with military and civic leadership. Though it was an aggressive settlement movement, Gush Emunim had never openly embraced an ideology of violence. The religious leadership asserted a biblically based Jewish claim to what was called by secularists the Palestinian West Bank of the Jordon River. In the 1970s Gush Emunim did not advocate deportation of the Arab population, although this would change.

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II.II The Economic Background of the Crisis The advent of cultural modernism, and the politics of advanced industrialization coincided with Europe’s transition from rule by a landbased aristocracy (Kallir, 2018) in the eighteenth century to industrial capitalism. "Industrialization created great extremes of wealth and poverty, but it also spawned a significant middle class. In the first half of the twentieth century, the two world wars and the Great Depression levelled the playing field for this emergent class by wiping out large stores of accumulated wealth. To ameliorate capitalism’s harsher side effects and to ward off the threat of communism, governments in Europe and the United States created social safety nets, regulated industry, and instituted various forms of progressive taxation. Between 1913 and 1948, income inequality dropped by ten per cent in the United States (Kallir 2018)." The three decades following World War II were characterized by rapid growth and low unemployment throughout the developed world. Per capita income rose at rates unequalled before or since (Piketty, 2014; Cassidy, 2014: chart 2,3). "Many blue-collar workers, traditional members of the proletariat, earned middle-class wages (Kallir, 2018)." Cultural modernism and the politics of advanced industrialization are "inseparable from the rise of the Western middle class. In nineteenthcentury Europe, the bourgeoisie created a vast new market (Kallir, 2018)" for higher education and specialized professions. In every country, major cities became educational and cultural hubs, replete with university research institutions, financial research institutions, museums, galleries, concert halls, theaters and publishing houses. The small colleges that had characterized the aristocratic age were transformed into large university systems that depended on governmental support to connect scientists with research applications for industry. As the middle class expanded in the second half of the twentieth century, advances in every field of specialization further broadened the demand for secular expertise. Just as cultural modernism and the politics of advanced industrialization were sustained, politically and intellectually, by the middle class, a parallel event appeared. Many members of the working class had previously been associated with liberal causes when these causes dealt with wage gains and economic equality, but those in the American and European nativist demographic groups became associated with religious fundamentalism and ethnic nationalism.

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Overview

At the same time, in the Muslim world, the needs of European industry and the desire to control natural resources created the political and economic impetuses to draw these Asian and African countries and their labor force into the globalist world order. Western globalists expected that modernization would produce political elites and parties compatible with western globalist rule. Yet, some in the Muslim world drew the opposite conclusion. The westernized middle classes and the cultural elite were said to represent everything that was wrong with contemporary society. As one of our scholars, Hakan Koni (“On the Limitations of Democracy as a Political Regime”), puts it, from the Muslim point of view, secular leadership is morally and financially corrupt: The suffering of a great deal of democracies from rampant corruption, the delegation of various policy areas that must be managed with knowledge and expertise under popular control, the change of state policies and programs together with the change of the government in occasions, the instability and political problems related with the difficulties of establishing and maintaining viable coalition governments, and finally the attachment of excessive importance to the individual in democracies at the expense of various religious, moral and social norms that serve critical functions for the order and stability of the society.

Although these complaints are hardly new, or hardly specific to one region, at a certain point a population has simply had enough; and there is a great deal of cynicism in American society. It is worth noting that in the 2016 presidential campaign, supporters of both Republicans and Democrats believed the respective other candidate was a criminal. The FBI suspected that significant legal violations occurred due to the unprofessional handling of thousands of sensitive documents by Clinton, while special counsel investigated possible illegal financial transactions with foreign governments by high officials in the Trump campaign.

III The Response of Religious Leaders and the Creation of Religious Identity Movements Against the Threat posed by Secularism Religious communities gradually came to recognize that secular education, and, in particular, secular science had marginalized religion. Now it is scientific medicine rather than faith that heals, and the physicists and evolutionary biologists and social scientists explain where we came from

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rather than sacred texts. In addition to the social class and citizenship issues that captured the attention of labor struggles in the nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries, religious and identity struggles are now comingled with social class. Religion is one part of identity; another part of identity is “ethnicity” in the multi-ethnic modern state. Large-scale migration, related to economic crises and wars, has resulted in nativist resentment very similar to what occurred in the United States and Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. The nationalist, authoritarian movement in different countries came to see globalism and secularism as a threat to group identity. Additionally, what is most interesting from a psychological point of view is that these fundamentalist and national identity movements typically oppose the psychological hallmark of cultural modernism and liberal pluralism, namely, empathy with the “other.” This is a critical issue, since one of the facts about the new millennium is the ethnic nativist hostility to the “other,” sometimes directed as Christian and Jewish hostility towards Muslims as foreigners of a different race, and, then again, often directed by Muslims against Jews, Christians, and foreigners in general. This antipathy, the opposition to pluralism, is one psychological attribute of fundamentalism. x Christian Demographics (Pew Forum, 2011) Christianity has more than 2.3 billion adherents. The faith represents onethird of the world’s population of 7.5 billion, and is the largest religion in the world, the three largest groups being Catholicism, Protestantism, and Eastern Orthodoxy. The largest Christian denomination is the Catholic Church, with 1.2 billion adherents. The second largest Christian branch is either Protestantism (if it is considered a single group), or the Eastern Orthodox Church (If Protestants are considered to be divided into multiple denominations). •

Jewish Demographics Jewish Virtual Library (2018)

The worldwide Jewish population was 14.6 million in 2018, less than .005 % of the Muslim population. Globally, the Jewish population is not growing. From 2000 to 2001 it rose 0.3%, compared to worldwide population growth of 1.4%. The largest Jewish populations (2018 estimate) are in the United States, 6.9 million, and Israel, 6.7 million. The rest live in “Western” type countries, such as France (453,000), Canada (390,500) the United Kingdom (290,000), Russia (172,000), Argentina (180,300), and

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Overview

Germany (116,000). In Africa, the largest Jewish population is in the Republic of South Africa (69,000). •

Muslim Demographics (Pew Research Center, October 2009)

There are (2009) over 1.5 billion Muslims living in over 200 countries. Most of the Muslim population lives in Asia and Africa; twenty per cent live in regions most closely associated with Islam—the Middle East and North Africa. Two principle denominations in Islam date from a conflict in the late-sixth century—Sunni and Shi’a. Ten to thirteen per cent of the Muslims are Shi’a, and most Shi’a live in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the states along the Gulf, and India. The other 87 to 90 per cent are Sunni Muslims. The Middle East and North Africa represent the largest region of Muslim majority countries and leaders of these countries often serve as spokespeople for the religion. There are many countries with large Muslim minority populations, such as India, China, and Russia. Some followers of Jewish and Muslim faiths are engaged in long-term conflict over the unending expansion of the Jewish Zionist state in Palestine. The groups are very different. Those of Jewish ethnicity live primarily in western (United States, European, or European-like Israel) settings, while the large majority of Muslims live in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Speaking of the United States, the Jewish population enjoys a substantially higher income than most Americans, and certainly higher income than most in the Muslim world (A Portrait of Jewish Americans, Pew Research Center, 2013, Summary, p. 13: “Fully one-quarter of Jews (25%) say they have a household income exceeding $150,000, compared with 8% of adults in the public as a whole.”). The Jewish population has had, proportionally, substantially more secular education than most of those in the US, and has certainly had more than most of those in the Muslim population (A Portrait of Jewish Americans, Pew Research Center, 2013, summary, p.13: “Jews have high levels of educational attainment. Most Jews are college graduates (58%), including 28% who say they have earned a post-graduate degree. By comparison, 29% of United States adults say they graduated from college, including 10% who have a post-graduate degree.”

IV The Comparative Framework Despite the enormous differences among Christianity, Islam and Judaism, a comparative framework exists following Appleby and Marty (2002) and

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Emerson and Hartman (2006) (from Makofsky—“Jewish Fundamentalism, Muslim Fundamentalism”). Therefore, we are using the following characteristics of theology and institutional organization to describe fundamentalist movements: •

Social Change and Marginality

Fundamentalism is the response of religious believers to the marginalization of religion, since fundamentalism is principally the defense of a religious tradition. For the Muslim population, the change in educational and work demands, and gender authority in work and family life have been dramatic. For Jews, the events in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, followed by the rapid rate of assimilation, have produced a population of Jewish identifiers who feel quite isolated, opposing intermarriage and overtly hostile to those who oppose Israeli policies. For Christians, it is believed that a large section of the Protestant evangelical movement feels overwhelmed by their loss of status in both the United States and internationally. •

Behavioral Limitations

Members of fundamentalist movements face behavioral limitations. "Rules about appropriate speech, dress, sexuality, drinking, eating, family formation, children, entertainment pursuits, and other behaviors are common (Emerson and Hartman, 2006:134)." Many in all three major religions interpret their behavior as in keeping with sacred texts. •

Future Rewards

For fundamentalists, history has a holy end. "At the end of time, at the return of an especially holy figure (the Messiah, the Hidden Imam, etc.), suffering will end, evil will be vanquished, and believers will be victorious. The Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) offer the most certain assurances (Emerson and Hartman, 2006:134)." For Zionists, it is an expanded and powerful “Jewish” state. For white Protestants, this involves a return to an era in which they believe Europe and the United States were effectively governed by leaders similar to them. For Muslims, the Sunni and Shi’a traditions have different vision of the glorious Islamic past, but most harbor resentment concerning their subordination during colonial rule.

Overview

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•

Authoritarianism as a Psychological Paradigm

Generally, fundamentalism is associated with authoritarian organizations. All the essays discuss these complicated social class/religious identity issues, but one fact is evident: fundamentalism and identity issues run through all the movements. Also worth considering is the fact that "fundamentalist movements are typically organized around charismatic leaders, and the others represent the followers. The leader (or leaders) is viewed by the followers as specially chosen by their deity, someone with near supernatural qualities or special access to the deity (Emerson and Hartman, 2006:134)." •

Challenges to Pluralism; Challenge to Secularism

Organizationally, fundamentalism is associated with an elect, chosen membership. "Those in fundamentalist movements tend to view themselves as called, selected out, set apart for their mission to defend the religious tradition (Emerson and Hartman, 2006:134)." This inherent belief, certainly evident in each case study, is an important constant. •

Role of Sacred Text

Fundamentalist religion typically possesses a sacred text that is always valid. "The texts of the Abrahamic tradition (the Torah, Qur’an, or Bible, for example) are of divine (inspired) origin, true and accurate (Emerson and Hartman, 2006:134)." This study concentrates on the Abrahamic religions, but events have shown the exclusivist role religion plays for Buddhists in Myanmar and Hindus in India. •

Reading of Sacred Text

Fundamentalists read sacred texts selectively. "Rather than simply defending a religious tradition, fundamentalism selects and reshapes aspects of the tradition (Emerson and Hartman, 2006:134)." Fundamentalism relies on hermeneutics rather than literalism, and uses "some aspects of modernity, such as much of modern science and modern forms of communication and other technologies". The Internet and social media are typical of modern means of communication. Finally, certain processes of modernity are singled out for focused opposition, such as abortion.

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Warring View of Reality

Fundamentalists often maintain a “warring view” of reality. Important divisions exist on each side within Muslim, Jewish and Protestant communities, and each conflict is different. •

Group Cohesion, Identity as Selected

Fundamentalist movements exhibit sharp organizational boundaries. "People are either in the fundamentalist group or they are not. The boundaries are clearly set; there is no confusion. One is either saved, righteous, a follower of Allah, a defender of the faith, or one is not (Emerson and Hartman, 2006:134)."

V Religious Identity Groups with Fundamentalist-like Beliefs An excellent case of fundamentalist-like behavior is found in the ProtestantCatholic conflict in Northern Ireland—Ramsey calls this “sectarianism” (from Ramsey, “The Good Thing about Sectarianism”): Attendance and religious commitment are rare, and a significant number of loyalist band members, including those in leadership roles, are avowed atheists or militant secularists. In conversation, band members frequently distinguished, in their political discourses, between “decent Catholics” or “ordinary nationalists” on one hand, and “republicans”, who are understood as those committed to the violent overthrow of the Northern Ireland state. Band members emphasize that their quarrel was with the latter. In practice, however, the boundary may not be so easy to draw. There is ample evidence that the sectarian division in Northern Ireland extends from the top to the bottom of the class structure. Yet, McAuley notes that the culture of sectarianism is most easily identified within the working class. Working-class areas of Belfast and other towns in Northern Ireland are prominently decorated with murals, flags and banners expressing allegiance to loyalism or nationalism, as well as to various groups aligned with these ideologies, from flute bands and football clubs to armed paramilitary organizations. Such displays of communal solidarity are rare or non-existent in more affluent areas, unionist, and nationalist or mixed. Moreover, the ranks of the organizations represented by such iconography are overwhelmingly filled from the working classes.

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Overview

VI Conflict between Secularists and Believers Many of the diatribes and manifestos generated by religious leaders were designed to convert skeptical believers from the middle class, but especially from the working class, into loyal followers. This does not mean, however, that the fundamentalist message was a sham. Beneath the seemingly apolitical doctrine of constitutionalism and “the separation of church and state,” the paradigms set forth by the twentiethcentury religious and political leaders were influenced by the power dynamics. It almost goes without saying that the secular world’s key players were male and largely Eurocentric in their cultural orientation. For many in the Jewish population, the liberal, secular pluralism of the West was far more attractive than what was perceived to be the narrow and increasingly right wing focus of Zionism—from Weizfeld (“Sectarianism and Reciprocity”): The major issue of the previous half century that continues on for the last 70 years is presented by Chaim Herzog at the United Nations General Assembly in response to the resolution that the ideology of Zionism is a form of Racism (Resolution 3379 10th November 1975). The re-establishment of Jewish independence in Israel, after centuries of struggle to overcome foreign conquest and exile, is a vindication of the fundamental concepts of the equality of nations and of self-determination. To question the Jewish people’s right to national existence and freedom is not only to deny to the Jewish people the right accorded to every other people on this globe, but it is also to deny the central precepts of the United Nations. In the first instance, such a claim as such in the name of the Jewish People is open to inspection, considering that the Zionist movement did not have the legitimate consent of the people on behalf of which it claimed to be expressing itself. While the Zionist ideology was the hegemonic expression of the bourgeois class amongst the Jewish People internationally, the great bulk of workers and refugees did not hold the same perspective of building a state at any cost as an expression of national self-determination. In the second instance, but of even greater significance, is sectarian insistence upon self-determination as an absolute principle, even though it was claimed in opposition to the very same claim made by the indigenous Palestinian Nation struggling against the British colonial occupation, begun in 1917 by General Allenby in his campaign to complete the goals of the Christian Crusade by entering as the victorious champion into Jerusalem.

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To claim the right to self-determination while denying that very same right to the indigenous population is obviously self-contradictory. It is not that the two rights were necessarily contradictory, since the two national struggles could have been conducted conjointly against the common occupier, but rather it was an ideological choice to exclude the “other” Palestinian claim for self-determination in favor of an absolute claim on behalf of one Nation alone.

As the World War II period moved forward, a special crisis appeared in the Jewish community. After the massive extermination of European Jews there were only two major concentrations of Jews in the world—Israel and the United States. In the United States, Jews were rapidly becoming assimilated. Many would have cheered this social change, but to those who identified with Judaism the rate of assimilation was catastrophic. A major research company was persuaded to do a study of American Judaism and the results were, to some, shocking. Pew Report on American Judaism in Makofsky (“Jewish Fundamentalism, Muslim Fundamentalism”): The changing nature of Jewish identity stands out sharply when the survey’s results are analyzed by generation. Fully 93% of Jews in the aging generation (born before 1927) identify as Jewish on the basis of religion, but just 7% describe themselves as having no religion. By contrast, among Jews in the youngest generation of U.S. adults, born after 1980, 68% identify as Jews by religion, while 32% describe themselves as having no religion and identify as Jewish on the basis of ancestry, ethnicity or culture. (p. 3). On intermarriage, Pew, (2013:5) “...intermarriage rates seem to have risen substantially over the last five decades. Among Jewish respondents who have gotten married since 2000, nearly 60% have a non-Jewish spouse. Among those who got married in the 1980s, roughly 40% have a non-Jewish spouse. And among Jews who got married before 1970, just 17% have a non-Jewish spouse.”

In other words, many American Jews have almost no ties to any Jewish institution at all. The result of the assimilation process during and after the third-generation Jewish community was pronounced. In the United States, the Jews born around the time of World War II managed to achieve remarkable levels of education and wealth, and married non-Jews at a very high rate. By the turn of the twenty-first century, Sussman states (2010):

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Overview American Judaism faced an undeniable reality. With the exception of a number of Orthodox communities and a few other bright spots in or just off the mainstream of Jewish religious life, American Judaism was in precipitous decline. Not only is enrollment in non-Orthodox Jewish religious educational programs down, so is synagogue affiliation. Philanthropic giving in the religious sector of the Jewish community is also declining. For rabbis, Jewish educators, and communal leaders, it is a difficult moment. Jews are flourishing in America, but organized, institutional Judaism is in deep trouble, particularly after the 2008 economic crisis.”

Since the future of Judaism in the United States is uncertain, those who worried about Judaism shifted their focus almost exclusively to Israel. The effect of this process is reflected, in Muslim eyes, in the writing of Hakan Koni (“On the Limitations of Democracy as a Political Regime”) where he notes that the hypocrisy of the West is the establishment of the State of Israel: For Goody (2005: 10, 16), Israel stands as another stark example of how high standards of freedom and democracy enjoyed by a country could go together with its massive violations of human rights. The Freedom House ranks Israel as the freest and the most democratic country in the Middle East with its freedom score ranging between 1.5 and 2 out of 7 since 1998, but Goody asks the question what democracy could mean if it ends up with the election of governments responsible for the most terrible massacres of recent history. Could it be possible to establish a democratic state on a land occupied in violation of international law, and could it be consolidated with further territorial expansion and liquidation of the natives of a land? Israel also benefits generously from the support of a powerful coalition of democratic states in the world led by the US. It was, again, very ironic from a democratic point of view that in a peace plan sketched by the US in 2003, Palestine was urged to depose its democratically elected president, Yasser Arafat, as a precondition for the start of the peace negotiations.

VII The Great Change 1970–2020: Financial Collapse and War The period 2001–2008 was dominated by long, frustrating wars in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. This was followed by the financial collapse of 2008. It is hard to overstate the sheer economic cost of the 2008 financial crisis. The combination of increased expenditures and decreased revenues resulting from the crisis from 2008 to 2010 is likely to cost the United States government well over $2 trillion, more than twice the cost of the seventeenyear-long war in Afghanistan. But the most important effects of the financial crisis may be political, social, and generational, not economic. The years

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after the crisis saw sharp increases in political polarization and the rise of populist movements on both the left and right in Europe and the United States, culminating in Brexit in the U.K. and the election of Donald Trump in the United States. Such increases in political divides may be seen as a response to financial crises, but much of the antagonism is not framed in economic terms. Even the economic recovery experienced by the U.S. and, to a lesser extent, Britain, is not enough to neutralize the long-term political and social effects of the collapse (Harvard Business Review, 2018). The severity of the crisis was such that probably no government response could have eliminated these consequences; when the economy collapses, people will suffer, and they will blame the people in charge. From the view of critics, in the United States the way that the Bush and Obama administrations (2000–2016) chose to respond to the economic crisis greatly intensified the change in American political culture. Aspects of the economy remained stagnant, and the competition for jobs and income exacerbated racial and generational divisions among the “haves” and the “have nots”.

VII.1 The Impact in the U.S. and Western Europe As we pointed out earlier, the result of these changes was what was perceived to be a loss of income and status by the white working class. These working-class and “nativist” groups had their impact felt in the United States and Europe, and one manifestation of this was Brexit in the U.K. and Trump’s election in the United States. Gordon Ramsey (“The Good Thing about Sectarianism”): The central demand of Marxism has always been for “workers of the world to unite”, yet workers in Northern Ireland have stubbornly refused so to do. Marxists from James Connolly (an Irish “Republican” leader, 1858–1916) onward have blamed this refusal on the false consciousness of loyalist workers: bamboozled by the capitalists, and separated from their bosses’ propaganda, Marxists claimed, they would recognize their oppression, and rebel against the capitalist British (Whyte 1990).

However, events have repeatedly shown that when working-class loyalists rebel against the unionist establishment (those who support the union between Britain and Northern Ireland), they do not turn to nationalism, but to more extreme forms of loyalism (Whyte 1990).

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Similarly, nationalist working-class desire for a united Ireland does not imply a desire for union with working-class loyalists. Rather, Orangemen should “Be loaded on buses and fucked off back to England where they came from” (Millar 2016). Ritual hostility (which can easily become real hostility) to working-class loyalists forms a central part of working-class nationalist identity—enacted musically through “rebel bands” and Celtic FC football songs. The “false consciousness” model is not unique to Marxists. Middle-class liberals have blamed sectarianism on ignorance and lack of education, which has led working-class people to reprise past conflicts which have no relevance in the modern world (Ulster as “stuck in the past”). Some examples of unapologetically sectarian performance: •

Anti-Catholic antagonism was expressed more strongly by poor Protestants than by any others. This was, and is, regarded as a very common phenomenon in Northern Ireland. This was despite the fact that in Ballybeg, economic competition between poor Protestants and poor Catholics was negligible, and that, in everyday life, they maintained friendly relations, cooperated in farming, and treated each other as social equals. In contrast, richer farmers, who condemned the bigotry of Orangemen, had very little contact with Catholics.

x Those who refused to join the Orange Order justified their refusal by claims that it was too bigoted, too drunken and too egalitarian. When prestigious members of the community (such as a religious minister) joined the Order in the hope of influencing it, they were forcefully reminded that all brethren were equal within the Lodge. This rule of equality made the Order attractive to poorer Protestants who were anxious that professionals and yeomen should also join, precisely because they could be spoken to more plainly in Lodge Meetings than in any other context. When actual behavior was considered, there was little evidence for the greater bigotry of poorer Protestants. Accusations of Orange bigotry or lack of Protestant commitment by professionals were motivated by class hostility and distrust.

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In the United States, the situation for white Protestantism was different, but in the same manner as the Protestants in Northern Ireland, many white workers felt abandoned by the social elite. The expansion of religious identity and fundamentalism over the past quarter-century was stimulated in the West by a combination of globalization and an influx of babyboomers, then in their peak earning years. As boomers age out of the market, they are not being replaced in comparable numbers. On average, millennials earn twenty per cent less than boomers did at their age. Since the 1970s, financial deregulations, supply-side tax cuts, the evisceration of labor unions, and slowing economic growth has greatly eroded middle-class incomes. By 2010, twenty per cent of the national income of the United States was going to 1 per cent of the population (Piketty, 2014; Cassidy, 2014: Charts 1–2). Thomas Piketty (2014) warns that “inasmuch as the rate of return on capital has historically exceeded the rate of growth, income inequality is likely to become self-perpetuating unless governments step in to reverse it. So far, despite rampant populist rhetoric, little is being done to rein in our resurgent oligarchy.” Just as white Protestants in Northern Ireland recognized the threat to their identity, so did the white southern, evangelical fundamentalists. From Jack Bloom (“The Religious Right and Race”): David Kuo, who served as the second in command of President George W. Bush’s Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, said that although he felt that the issue of abortion was the most important motivation for right-wing Christians to become involved in politics, five years after Roe, an attempt by the Internal Revenue Service to consider eliminating the tax-exempt status of private Christian schools also infuriated Christians. Roe had convinced many Christians that America was morally lax, and the IRS convinced them there was a Big Brother out to get them. Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, so, five years later was 1978, and the president at that time was Jimmy Carter, an evangelical himself. Many in the Christian right saw the threat of losing the tax exemption that was available to private Christian schools as even more important in moving the group into politics than Kuo did. Paul Weyrich, a founder of the conservative Heritage and Free Congress Foundations, and of the American Legislative Exchange Council, which coordinates right-wing legislation in the states, felt that the IRS policy “shattered the Christian community’s notion that Christians could isolate

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Overview themselves inside their own institutions and teach what they pleased.” Richard Viguerie, a long-time conservative activist who was an innovator in direct mail donations long before the Internet became the way to solicit money, said that the new IRS policy “kicked the sleeping dog. It galvanized the religious right. It was the spark that ignited the religious right’s involvement in politics.”

VII.II The Transformation of the Muslim World The Muslim world has felt the greatest impact of the decades of unending war. The modernizing revolutions, parallel to those that occurred in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries’ western experience, have resulted in a lengthy war with very heavy foreign intervention between Iran and its allies against Saudi Arabia and its allies. A great deal of finger pointing has been aimed at the Muslim community when it comes to fundamentalist beliefs and identity movements. The involvement of the poorer classes in the Muslim communities has had an enormous impact on the entire world, as the involvement of the poor had in the previous revolutions in Western Europe, Russia, and China. As the working class/labor historians of past eras have shown, this great shift in culture and economy runs against the forces that wish to control the direction of cultural change. Israel, the United States and Russia all have economic and control reasons for intervening in the Muslim world, and the easiest explanation they provide is that they have been asked by local forces in the area to respond to terror from the other side. This intervention not only creates victims and refugees in the Muslim world, but it significantly erodes any semblance of a liberal order all over the world by promoting the use of poison gas, missiles, drone strikes, and torture. The general failure of secularist leaders internationally and in the Muslim world to offer a solution that is satisfactory to major portions of the population has been associated with the rise of fundamentalism. In the Muslim world, the availability of “liberal” secular or religious leaders has always been present, but their capacity for leadership is in question. These secular leaders who have failed, include Nasser of Egypt, the Assad family in Syria and Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and have destroyed the credibility of secular government. The public had misperceived the initial secularist,

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nationalist leadership as idealistic and not self-serving, an opinion which is quickly reversed once in power. The stagnant economy, often described as the consequence of capitalist neo-liberalism, is what destroys these secular monarchs. One of the legacies of the Iranian Islamic Revolution was the creation of a distinct western attitude to militant political Shi’ism. The initial vehemence of its anti-Americanism, energetic desire to export its revolutionary doctrines, and penchant for hostage taking and terrorism made Sunni activism appear less threatening in comparison. This attitude prevailed throughout the 1980s, only to be rudely awakened in the mid-1990s following the Sunni backlash to the first Gulf War. The leadership of the United States, in recognition of unease amongst its Sunni Allies, has now come full circle. In a bid to restore a favorable equilibrium to the Shi’aSunni balance of power, United States’ leadership is increasing military aid to Sunni regional powers, and enlisting the assistance of Sunni militants. This may, in the short term, bring apparent stability to Iraq, and reassure Saudi, Jordanian and Egyptian allies of the support of the United States. The wider regional impact of establishing the first Shi’a ruled Arab state (Iraq) was only seriously addressed by specialists following the transfer of power to the Interim Government. The Saudis are involved in repression of its own Shi’a community under a cloak of religious sectarianism, and they urge other Sunni Gulf States to do this as well. By encouraging fear of Iran in response to a vigorous Shi’a revival, the Saudis justify their tacit support for more controversial policies. The Saudis fear Hezbollah and Iran’s support of the Palestinian cause and a Shi’a challenge to the political control of Lebanon.

VIII The Formation of Identity: Case Study David Makofsky, Bayram Unal, and an assistant, Maimaitijiang Abudugayiti, conducted ethnographic and survey-based research on an ethnic Turkic Muslim group, the Uyghurs of Chinese Central Asia. The case study is in two sections; “Fundamental Life Style and Identity Hierarchy Among Uyghurs”, written by Dr. Unal, and “The Formation of Uyghur Muslim Identity: Working Class and Gender Contributions”, written by Dr. Makofsky. The focus of this study was on some of the very factors raised in this volume: the roles of gender, social class, and historic memory on the

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formation of identity. Although much of the research was done in Turkey, everyone who was interviewed was born and raised in the Muslim and Turkic speaking area of the Uyghur Independent Republic of Xinjiang, one of the northwest provinces of China. The Uyghurs, together with their close linguistic neighbors, the Uzbeks, are among the most populous of the Turkic-speaking Muslim people of Central Asia, who live in the vast region of grasslands and mountains that stretch from the Mediterranean to the center of China, Xian. Numbering more than 20 million, the Uyghurs are one of the largest ethnic groups in China. Their nomadic ancestors migrated westward from the eastern part of Central Asia to what is now contemporary Anatolia, over the course of many centuries. Among those whose ancestors did not migrate are the Uyghur Muslims of China. The Uyghur dialect is considered close to old Turkish. Using a sample of Uyghurs in Turkey, we tested the inclusion of social class and Islamic customary practice on modernization theory as it applies to the Muslim world. Modernization theory, developed in the 1960s by applied social scientists from a Western-oriented sociological tradition, has had its own shortcoming: it is too general to be useful. By specifying the impact of Islam and social class, we hope to improve its utility. A questionnaire was developed concerning the issues raised in the process of the modernizing revolution of the Muslim world: ethnic identity, the maintenance of customary Muslim community practices, social class and gender differences. One part of the study investigates the perceived and lived identities of Uygur youth temporarily living in Turkey through fundamental determinants: Hawlback’s concept of social memory and Assman’s concept of communicative memory. The memory that defines the students’ sense of belonging to their racial roots was structured on normative and formative foundations. It has determined the quality of “attitudes towards collectiveness” and was used to determine fidelity among the members of the community. However, it is naïve to assume that the social/cultural memory is the only factor constituting the individual’s identity without understanding changes over time and geographic distances. Especially in the diaspora, social memory is not sufficient in contributing to belonging, and we find that “historical memory” has been transferred to the everyday life as a differential interpretation of the past.

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The other part of the study investigates ethnic identity—the maintenance of customary Muslim community practices, attempting to focus on social class and gender differences. A sample drawn from Uyghur students and professionals in Turkey, in the spring of 2015, was supplemented by visiting a Uyghur refugee camp in Turkey.

IX Conclusions Although it would appear to be self-evident that the success of moderate and assimilationist-secularist oriented followers could provide some basis for future cooperation, the real obstacle to this goal is that a sizeable portion of all three movements opposes moderation and secularism in their own communities. Consider each one of these religious communities: The increasing political/cultural role of Muslim working classes in their period of industrialization and modernization, and the increasing political/cultural role of Muslims in response to the most recent Western invasion of the Islamic world since the end of World War II. These movements had their origins during European colonial expansion in the nineteenth century.

The fact that the modernizing revolution has been associated with an Islamic awakening represents the global challenge of our time. As the Muslim community confronts secular urban life both in their homelands and, as migrants, in foreign countries, it is evident that secular and Islamic cultures are very different. The case study of the Uyghur community uses survey analysis and interviews and finds a great deal of conflict over issues, such as the “woman’s role” in society and loyalty to “national” objectives when they contradict Islamic customary practice. Tension between secular and religious norms serves to weaken secular authority. In many Muslim societies, there has been a great deal of cynicism towards Western claims that Western institutions might provide a model for the Muslim world. As Hakan Koni (“On the Limitations of Democracy as a Political Regime”) points out: The cause of the war (2003 and onwards) was in its course changed to fight against tyranny and introducing democracy and human rights in Iraq, but this is also very far from being a legitimate excuse for war at the present stage of international law. And it was the scale of human casualties that discredited the US war in Iraq more than anything else as the number of Iraqi deaths between 200,000 and 600,000 according to the most and the least optimistic surveys (Hagopian et. al. 2013). And the estimates guess that more than 70 % of the casualties were civilians.

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As turmoil in the Muslim world continues, a cold war between two factions, one led by Iran and called “Shi’a” and the other led by Saudi Arabia and called “Sunni” has emerged. It appeared, after the 2020 election, that the Democratic Party liberals might be somewhat more sympathetic to accommodation with Iran, and the Republican conservatives more hostile, but Israel and Saudi Arabia remain allies of the United States. Similar to the war on terror this Shi’a-Sunni conflict is a long and costly struggle that will not soon be resolved. Although foreign powers are invited into the area to support autocratic rulers, foreign intervention is resented by the general population. The victims are almost always civilians. In the midst of the very real carnage, to claim that the foreign power is only there to support “moderate” Muslims may not be widely believed. The threat of neo-colonialism: the appearance of an aggressive, expansionist, and nuclear-armed Jewish Zionist state following the 1967 war, intent on stopping, not only Palestinian nationalism, but also intent on preventing any of its Muslim neighbors from entering the nuclear age.

Abraham Weizfeld (“Sectarianism and Reciprocity”) concludes: “The exclusive nature of secularism is defined by a State that forbids the expression of any cultural attributes that differ from the State-sponsored theocratic culture and presumes that all the subjects of the State would adopt by assimilation such a common definition of citizenship in the mode of the Nation-State itself. Despite the horrendous consequences of such a definition, particularly in Europe over the course of the twentieth century, the lack of critique of such a model is most disturbing.” Only a minority of the Jewish people outside of Israel accept the words of the Biblical text as authoritative, and so the claim to a historical Jewish state rests on the moral authority of its claims that are directed to the ethnic loyalty of an assimilated and intermarried Jewish population in the United States. Events are changing, and a large Protestant evangelical population has embraced Zionism. Similarly, in the name of national identity, ethnic groups in Europe that feel threatened by rising Muslim migration have embraced the support of Zionism as a means of expressing anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiments. As the Zionists gain the support of the non-Jewish American and European right, then at what point might they simply be abandoned by the much more liberal Western Jewish community? As Makofsky points out in his article

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(Jewish Fundamentalism), the Jewish abandonment of Zionism is a real threat to Israel. Social groups in decline: financial crisis and political developments created what was perceived to be a loss of income and status by the white working class. These working class and “nativist” groups had their impact felt in the United States and Europe, and one manifestation of this was Brexit in the U.K. and Trump’s election in the United States.

As Jack Bloom (“The Religious Right and Race”) points out: Bringing fundamentalists and evangelicals into the political arena and to the Republican Party had an important racial dimension to it. It is inescapably evident that colluding with proponents of white supremacy has been a part of the Republican effort to win control of the government. This process was clearly evident long before today’s form of ultra-conservatism took over the GOP. In 1964, one of the Republicans elected to the House of Representatives from Mississippi in the Goldwater sweep of the Deep South, “celebrated his victory for the party of Abraham Lincoln by making his first public appearance after the election before the Americans for the Preservation of the White Race.”

Most observers had underestimated the very strong opposition to “tolerance” and “inclusiveness” held especially by the less well educated Western public, the potential for victory rests on a solid core of supporters. Ramsey (“The Good Thing about Sectarianism”) presents a vision of the future in a discussion of the future for white, working-class Protestants in Northern Ireland that closely resembles the observations of Bloom: The understanding that creating reliable working-class solidarities in specific contexts requires credible distance from universalist establishment discourses of liberalism (and neo-liberalism), secularism or socialism is a tool that might, perhaps, be deployed far beyond Northern Ireland to understand movements ranging from Islamism and extreme Zionism in the Middle East to Trumpism in the USA, and from Hindu nationalism in India to the populist right in Europe. It remains to be seen how working-class groups in different contexts will respond to the co-option of such communalist discourses of resistance by new elite figures such as Donald Trump in the USA; Narendra Modi in India; Recep Erdo÷an in Turkey; Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel or Victor Orbán in Hungary. The consequences are likely to depend not only on local dynamics, but on the success or failure of these figures in delivering on their promises. In Northern Ireland, even with Brexit passed the future is uncertain, but what is certain in such times of uncertainty is that sectarian solidarity, as a social

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Overview resource, is likely to become more, rather than less important, for those who have few other resources.

Throughout the world, the strength of powerful regional leadership is undermining efforts at mutual cooperation and understanding. Those who appear to support cooperation may themselves have a hidden agenda. There is a great distrust of “corporate globalists” leaders who preach tolerance and leave the population economically marginalized.

X Who We Are Hakan Köni, whose article “On the Limitations of Democracy as a Political Regime” provides a critical Muslim view of Western institutions and Western policy as the United States and its allies, especially Israel, attempt to impose social change on Muslim areas. Dr. Köni lectures at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration of Ankara Science University. He completed his PhD at the Department of Political Science, Bilkent University. His main areas of interest and specialization include Turkish politics, the politics of religion and state, political conservatism, democracy and democratization, party politics and elections, and political ideologies. Dr. Köni can be contacted at [email protected] or [email protected] for further communication on his chapter. Jack M. Bloom, who has written “The Religious Right and Race” is a Professor of Sociology, Adjunct Professor of Minority Studies, Adjunct Professor of History, Indiana University Northwest. He received his PhD from U.C. Berkeley, and was active in the social movements of the sixties and seventies. He wrote the prize-winning Class, Race and the Civil Rights Movement, the second edition of which has recently been released, which examines how changes in political economy in the U.S. made it possible for blacks to force change, and how blacks were able to change themselves to do so; and Seeing Through the Eyes of the Polish Revolution, which is about how the Solidarity movement succeeded in ending Soviet domination and Communist rule in that country. He is currently working on a new book: Class, Race and the Rise of the New Right. His contact is [email protected]. Here, Dr. Bloom is writing about Evangelical Christianity and racial politics in the United States. Dr. Abraham Weizfeld has written “Sectarianism and Supremacism”, concerning the internal conflicts within Judaism between the more secular

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and universalist Jewish Bund, and what has become the more religious and right wing branch of Zionism. Dr. Weizfeld, PhD UQAM, M.A. York U., B.Sc. UdeW, completed his PhD at l’Université du Québec à Montréal, with a thesis entitled “Nation, Society and the State: The Reconciliation of Palestinian and Jewish National Identity”. His research focuses on the critique of European political philosophy, from Hegel’s Nation-State modernity to the Zionist State of today. The Jewish Bund political heritage is the basis of his political-philosophical framework, in distinction from the Zionist and Marxist political tendencies. Professor Gordon Ramsey, in “The Good Thing about Sectarianism: An Intersectional Approach to Class and Identity in Northern Ireland”, writes from a Protestant perspective about the conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, and the sources of working-class Protestant solidarity in the face of a perceived deterioration in their position. After a varied career, including military service and work as a motorcycle mechanic and heritage service guide, Gordon Ramsey came to Queen’s University Belfast as a mature undergraduate in Social Anthropology and Ethnomusicology in 2001. He was awarded his PhD in Ethnomusicology in 2009 for his work on loyalist flute bands in Northern Ireland, and his monograph, “Music, Emotion and Identity in Ulster Marching Bands” was published in 2011 by Peter Lang. For the past ten years he has been teaching Anthropology and Ethnomusicology at Queen’s University. His interests focus on the intersection of social class and ethnicity and on the politics of communal music making. He is an active community musician. Dr. David Makofsky is an Adjunct Professor, Sociology and Anthropology, Indiana University Northwest; Research Anthropologist, Ethnic Minorities Studies Center, Minorities University of China Beijing, China. He received his PhD from UC Berkeley and was active in social movements in the 1960s and 70s. He wrote a dissertation in Istanbul, taught at State University of New York, Binghamton and San Francisco State, worked as an Applied Statistician for the City of San Francisco, and after retirement went to Minorities University (Minzu) in Beijing. He can be reached at [email protected] In China, Dr. Makofsky developed an interest in the Uyghurs, but because of the controversial nature of the place of the Uyghurs in contemporary China he met Bayram Unal and followed the Uyghurs to Ankara to complete a case study, “Islamic Identity and Social Class in a Time of Crisis”. Dr. Makofsky worked with Dr. Bayram Unal, Sociology Nigde University, Turkey.

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Bayram Ünal is a professor in Nigde University, Turkey where he has been a faculty member since 1993 and research affiliate of the Ferdinand Braudel Center, Binghamton University, NY since 2006. He completed his PhD at the Sociology Department of State University of New York at Binghamton in 2008, and his M.A at Old Dominion University. His main research interests lie in the area of historical sociology, focusing on Labor, Migration, Inequality, Gender. He can be reached at [email protected]

Bibliography Appleby, R. Scott and. Marty, Martin E. (2002). “Fundamentalism “. Foreign Policy, No. 128 (Jan. - Feb. 2002), pp. 16–18+20–22: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC Black, Ian (2013). Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/19/muslimbrotherhood-poised-prosper-egypt Cassidy, John, (2014). https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/pikettys-inequalitystory-in-six-charts Dekker, Paul & Ester, Peter. (2006). “Working-Class Authoritarianism: A Re-Examination of the Lipset Thesis”. European Journal of Political Research. 15. 395–415. 10.1111/j.1475-6765.1987.tb00884.x. Emerson, Michael O., Hartman, David, (2006). “The Rise of Religious Fundamentalism”. Annual Review of Sociology, 32 (2006): 127–144 Goody, Jack (2005). Democracy, values and modes of representation. Diogenes 52(2): 7–18. Harvard Business Review, (2018). The Social and Political Costs of the Financial Crisis, 10 Years Later https://hbr.org/2018/.../the-social-and-political-costs-of-the-financialcrisis-10-years-later Sep 25, 2018 Hobsbawm, Eric (1962). Age of Revolution: Europe, 1789–1848. New York: Vintage Books. Jewish Virtual Library (2018). (https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-population-of-the-world 2018 estimate) Kallir, Jane (2018). The End of Middle-Class Art. Arts&Letters. (https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/the-end-ofmiddle-class-art)

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Lerner, Daniel (1958). The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East. New York, Free Press. Makofsky, David, Unal, Bayram and Abudugayiti, Maimaitijiang (2017). Social class and Islamic Identity: Chinese Uyghur Students and Working Class in Turkey presented at ATINER, 3rd Annual International Conference on Anthropology, 12–15 June 2017, Athens, Greece Massad, Joseph (2006). The Persistence of the Palestinian Question: Essays on Zionism and the Palestinians. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-41577010-6.) Moaddel, Monsoor (1999). Religion and Women: Islamic Modernism vs. Fundamentalism Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 37:1 108– 130 Owen, J. Judd. (2004). The Task of Liberal Theory after September 11. Perspectives on Politics. 2, 2: 325–330. Pew Forum on Global Christianity, (2011). http://www.pewforum.org/2011/12/19/global-christ HYPERLINK “http://www.pewforum.org/2011/12/19/global-christianityexec/”ianity-exec/ Pew Research Center, (2009). Mapping the Global Muslim Population: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Muslim Population”. Pew Research Center, (2014). A Portrait of Jewish Americans. Piketty, Thomas (2013). Capital in the Twenty-First Century Translator Arthur Goldhammer Éditions du Seuil Harvard University Press ISBN 978-0674430006 Public Radio International, (2017). (https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-1112/cold-war-between-iran-and-saudi-arabia-hea HYPERLINK “https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-11-12/cold-war-between-iran-andsaudi-arabia-heating-here-are-5-things-you-should-know”ting-hereare-5-things-you-should-know) Qutb, Sayyid (2003). Milestones. Kazi Publications, Chicago. Salon (2016). (https://www.salon.com/2016/01/06/saudi_arabia_funds_and_exports_ islamic_extremism_the_truth_behind_the_toxic_u_s_relationship_with _the_theocratic_nation/) Shah, Hemant, (2011). The Production of Modernization: Daniel Lerner, Mass Media, and the Passing of Traditional Society. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. ISBN: 9781439906158. Sprinzak, Ehud (1989). The Emergence of the Israeli Radical Right Comparative Politics, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Jan) , pp. 171-192. Sussman, Lance, (2010). Prospects for American Judaism.

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https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/202/prospects-for-americanjudaism/

JEWISH FUNDAMENTALISM, MUSLIM FUNDAMENTALISM COMPARED: WHAT DO WE LEARN? DAVID MAKOFSKY ADJUNCT PROFESSOR, SOCIOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY INDIANA UNIVERSITY NORTHWEST

Part I: The Modernizing Revolutions The politics of identity serve disparate political agendas, among which are those to do with the politics of emancipation and equal rights. This concern is reflected in strands of theory and research where the relationship between identity and politics has become a central focus of inquiry. Such thematic fields are, for instance, the next generation of human rights, which are understood as cultural rights, the role of cultural rights in debates of multiculturalism in immigrant societies, or the theories of the subject in cultural studies, and is often called “intersectionality”. At the same time, those whose political objectives are to be found at the ultra-conservative end of the political spectrum have appropriated the term “identity”. That is, proponents of variously defined nationalisms, ethnopluralists, culturalist racists, and xenophobes also claim their struggles involve identity. Indeed, xenophobia is seen by the extreme Right as a natural reaction to the perceived threat posed by immigrants. This analysis is an effort to show that efforts directed towards liberation and positive self-identification can serve many cultural goals. A good comparison to illustrate this case is that of Islam and Judaism. The Islamic world of the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia is now undergoing a change comparable to that experienced in Europe in the nineteenth century, that of industrialization and popular movements for political change.

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Jewish Fundamentalism, Muslim Fundamentalism Compared

This same process transformed Russia and China following the collapse of the old empires in the wake of the First and Second World Wars (1914– 1945) and has now spread to other nations all over the world. Now we have three models of modernizing revolutions—the Western European bourgeois revolutions, the Communist revolutions, and the Islamic revolutions—and all have displayed completely distinct sets of characteristics. Change in Europe and the West was first thought to be a unique transformative pattern that would, in all likelihood, be followed by the rest of the world. Shiner (1975:246–247) describes this change: “A survey of the various description of the two types of societies (“traditional” and “modern”) yields the following list of typically paired traits: Politically, the traditional society is characterized by the minimal participation of the governed, while the modern society is characterized by high participation of the governed. In work and in social organization, traditional roles are structurally diffuse while in modern society such roles are structurally differentiated. Typically, the traditional culture is permeated by sacred norms, while the modern culture is highly rationalized or secularized. The social organization in traditional society is based on relatively small units based on kinship, while in the modern society the organizational formation is the nation state. The “state” itself changes: in traditional society, the governing organization has limited capacity to meet external or internal challenges, while in modern society the governing organization possesses the capacity to meet most external or internal challenges. Social historians (i.e. Hobsbawm, 1999) detailed the upheavals in Western Europe caused by the economic and political revolutions of the nineteenth century. Historically, these are defined as the political revolution in France and the industrializing revolution in Britain. The important components are political mobilization of the masses, the emergence of the market for labor and goods, and the division of labor. Ultimately, the process resulted in the formation of the bourgeois democratic state. The second wave of revolutions consisted of the communist revolutions of what become the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. The political parties that led these revolutions owed their origins to nationals living abroad using the West as a model for development. In addition, as understood through Lenin’s What is to be Done?, the communists recognized that in forming a political party as a cadre party—a group of people whose lives were dedicated to the party—they might mobilize the masses and achieve power.

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This vision was realized during the social upheaval of the First (1914–1918) and the Second (1939–1945) World Wars, wars that completely destroyed the old regimes. These dates simply approximate the turmoil of the period since there was armed struggle in the Soviet Union long after 1918, and in China the war between Japan and the Republic of China began in the early 1930s, and the revolution was not achieved until 1949. The Communist states that emerged bore little resemblance either in structure or in developmental process to their Western and European counterparts. For their part, the Communist states share similar institutions, such as the leadership of the Communist party and, at least initially, the attack on private property. Finally, we arrive at the revolution in question—the world of Islam and its nationalist anti-colonial ideology. Yet there is more. In an influential article, The Task of Liberal Theory after September 11, J. Judd Owen (2004:25) puts forth as the principle issue of the new millennium: “the single most profound theoretical challenge since liberalism’s origins ... is ... the challenge of illiberal revealed theology”. Judd raises this issue when discussing the Islamic theorist Sayyid Qutb, the leading theorist associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. There are those who believe that at its “essence”, Islam cannot be “liberal”, because the Sharia does not recognize the separation of “Church” and “State”. This issue will appear throughout the investigation, and the case will be made that “essentialism” represents a flawed way to look at religion and culture. The spur of this investigation of fundamentalism is the arrival of a modernizing revolution in the Muslim world, one that has dominated world events in the current century. Specifically, why would this Muslim workingclass (factory workers, poor farmers, low income small businessmen) be associated with religious fundamentalism rather than demands for income equality and citizenship rights? The renewal of religious fundamentalism in the post-1945 period was not expected. Religious communities gradually came to recognize that secular education, and, in particular, secular science, had marginalized religion. Scientific medicine that “heals”, rather than faith, and the physicists, evolutionary biologists and social scientists explain “where we came from” rather than sacred texts. Yet, rather than the dominance of “social class” and “citizenship” issues that captured the attention of labor struggles in the last century, now we have religious and identity struggles.

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Religion is one part of identity; another part of identity is the ethnic group living with others in the nation state. The nationalist authoritarian movement sees “globalism” and “secularism” as a threat to group identity. Additionally, what is most interesting from a psychological point of view is that these fundamentalist and national identity movements seem to oppose the mental hallmarks of modernity; “empathy” with the “other “and liberal pluralism. This is a critical issue, since one of the striking facts about the new millennium (post-2000) is the ethnic nativist hostility to the “other”, sometimes directed as Christian and Jewish hostility towards Muslims, and then again, often directed by Muslims against Jews, Christians and foreigners in general. This anti-empathy, opposition to “pluralism”, is one psychological attribute of fundamentalism. Hemant Shah reviewing the ideas of “modern” and “pluralist” world systems development paused to reflect on the change over time. Daniel Lerner’s, in The Passing of Traditional Society, one of the major works of modernization, has been turned on its head. Hemant Shah (Shah, 2011, p. 49) wrote about the importance of this mental capacity: Empathy...is...the capacity to see oneself in the other fellow’s situation and this would lead the person to desire the lifestyles and values exercised in those far-away lands.” Based on his Voice of America research data, Lerner described a “modern” Middle Eastern person as someone who has opinions, has empathy, and is happier than a “traditional” person. Lerner’s theory was criticized for its simplistic approach and later Lerner revised part of his modernization theory. If there was such confidence in the coming of “empathetic” modern citizen and “the modern liberal order” fifty years ago, then what caused groups to turn to fundamentalism, and for what reasons? What were the flaws of liberal pluralism?

Part II A Matter of Definition: Liberal Theory, Modernism, and Fundamentalism The basis of this investigation is that there is a definite threat to “liberal order” in the period in which we live. The term “Liberal theory”, as it is used here, is not actually the ideology of liberal politicians. “Liberal theory” is the product of the European Enlightenment, and is represented by such principles as the separation of church and state and, beyond that, the scientific method associated with classic liberalism. In this sense, liberalism is identical to the philosophical currents associated with “modernism”, and modernism recognizes the existence of a global community and the separation of church and state.

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There exists a lengthy history of Islamic liberalism. Mansoor Moaddel, an American sociologist with a Muslim background, made the following observation, distinguishing between Muslim experiences in various settings. Moaddel contrasted two types of Islam (1999: 108–109): From the nineteenth century on, Europeans and their westernized allies in the Islamic countries have predominantly condemned Islam for its mistreatment of women. The responses of the Islamic scholars have been diverse. In Islamic fundamentalism, there is an outright attack on the West for its cultural decadence and sexual promiscuity. (Muslim) Women are instructed to cover their bodies from head to toe with the exception of the face. In contrast, a group of modernist Muslim theologians, notably in India and Egypt around the turn of the twentieth century, advanced a modernist exegesis of the Quran, arriving at an Islamic feminist conception of gender relations. These scholars championed women’s rights to education and involvement in social affairs, questioned the existing restrictions on women, criticized men’s attitudes and behavior toward women and rejected polygamy.

Moaddel (1999: 111) argued that liberalism in Egypt and India was made possible by the decline of the old Islamic elite: “As a result, the requisite social resources and space for new culture production were provided, a pluralistic discursive field emerged, and the growth of Islamic modernist discourse was made possible”. Liberal Muslim thought cannot be understood as limited to the condition of women. It involves the rethinking and reformulation of an entire set of cultural values. Secularism and rationalization involve the reforming of institutions to train a professional class. Although Moaddel refers to Egypt and India, the impact of liberal Muslim thought can be felt throughout the world of Islam. At the same time, the decline of the religious elite was only temporary.

Part II (a) Liberal Theory Liberal theory represents the idea that God’s intervention plays little or no role in determining the course of events. In military or in government affairs, it would hold that effective strategy and appropriate use of resources leads to success in the real world, rather than divine intervention. In law, the secular-based tenets of legal adjudication should be dominant rather than divinely inspired, revealed truth.

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Secularism is defined as the acceptance of world events in scientific and material terms, in other words, not in religious terms. Fundamentalism is a set of beliefs that oppose the very notion of “modernity”. Its emphasis is on what is perceived to be old, inherited tradition. Fundamentalism opposes the separation of church and state. In social terms, fundamentalism is most comfortable with what social scientists call “Identity” beliefs, which hold that ethnic diversity and political pluralism represent a threat to social and religious unity. For the purposes of this investigation, we characterize movements of fundamentalism (not conservatism) as the alternative to liberal theory. Movements stressing identity, framed in the name of tradition (an identity that has its roots in established history), particularly in the framework of an all-encompassing religion, are the alternative to pluralism and secularism. In religious terms this includes opposition to ideas and practices that put “man” before “God”. Such beliefs are quite prevalent among by followers of Evangelical Christianity, Orthodox Judaism, and Sharia-based Islam. In more pragmatic terms, such beliefs often oppose assimilation in liberal secular society. Many problems exist in using the term “fundamentalism”. The term originally applied to a type of Protestant evangelism, and is not necessarily applicable to other faiths. A different use of the term is being applied here, one that is consistent with most writers on contemporary fundamentalism.

Part II (b) Fundamentalism Following Appleby and Marty (2002) and Emerson and Hartman (2006), these characteristics of theology and institutional organization describe fundamentalist movements: x Fundamentalism is the response of religious believers to the marginalization of religion, since fundamentalism is principally the defense of a religious tradition. This tradition is perceived to be eroding, or under attack by the processes of modernization and secularization. x Organizationally, fundamentalism is associated with an elect, chosen membership. Those in fundamentalist movements view themselves as called, selected out, set apart for their mission to defend the religious tradition.

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x Fundamentalist religion typically possesses a sacred text that is always valid. x The texts of the tradition (the Torah, Qur’an, or Bible, for example) are of divine (inspired) origin, true and accurate. Fundamentalist movements in religions that do not have a clear sacred text often raise one text over others. x Fundamentalists read sacred texts selectively. Rather than simply defending a religious tradition, fundamentalism selects and reshapes aspects of the tradition. x

Fundamentalism relies on hermeneutics rather than literalism, and uses some aspects of modernity, such as much of modern science and modern forms of communication and other technologies. The Internet and social media are typical modern means of communication. Finally, certain processes of modernity are singled out for focused opposition, such as abortion.

x Generally, fundamentalists maintain authoritarian organizations. Fundamentalist movements are typically organized around charismatic leaders, with others being the followers. The leader (or leaders) is viewed by the followers as specially chosen by their deity, someone with near supernatural qualities or special access to the deity. x Fundamentalist movements exhibit sharp organizational boundaries. People are either in the fundamentalist group or they are not. The boundaries are clearly set; there is no confusion. One is saved, righteous, a follower of Allah, a defender of the faith, or one is not. x Fundamentalists maintain a “warring view of reality”. Reality is clearly divided into the moral and the wicked, bright and gloomy, decent and outrageous. x Members of fundamentalist movements face behavioral limitations. Rules about appropriate speech, dress, sexuality, drinking, eating, family formation, children, entertainment pursuits, and other behaviors are common. x For fundamentalists, History has a holy end. At the end of time, at the return of an especially holy figure (The Messiah, The Hidden

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Imam, etc.), suffering will end, evil will be vanquished, and believers will be victorious. The Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) offer the most certain assurances.

Part III: The Transformation of World of Islam Muslim Demographics (Pew Research Center, October 2009) More than 1.5 billion Muslims (2009) live in over 200 countries. Most of the Muslim population lives in Asia. Twenty per cent live in the region most closely associated with Islam: the Middle East and North Africa. Two principle denominations in Islam date from a conflict in the late seventh century—Sunni and Shi’a. 10 to 13 per cent of the Muslims are Shi’a. Most of the Shi’a live in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and India. The other 87 to 90 per cent are Sunni Muslims. The Middle East and North Africa represent the largest regions of Muslim majority countries, and leaders of these countries often serve as spokespeople for the religion. There are many countries with large Muslim minority populations, such as India, China, and Russia.

Part III (a) The transformation—The Revolution in Iran (1979) and the Arab Spring (2011–2012 and beyond) The revolution that transformed Iran in 1979 was one of the remarkable events of contemporary history. In 1953, Mohammad Mosaddegh, the 35th Prime Minister of Iran, who had held office since 1951, was overthrown in the Iranian coup d’état orchestrated by the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency and the United Kingdom’s MI6. At this point a secular leader had the opportunity to lead Iran, but outside forces effectively blocked their way. Twenty-six years later the Iranian Revolution of 1979, also called the Islamic Revolution, was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the dynasty of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was supported by the United States, and the replacement of his government with an Islamic republic under the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a leader of one of the factions in the revolt. The revolution was supported by various Islamist and leftist organizations and student movements—see Keddie (2003) for these details.

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Demonstrations against the Shah commenced in October 1977, developing into a campaign of civil resistance that included both secular and religious elements. The protests rapidly intensified in 1978. Between August and December 1978, strikes and demonstrations paralyzed the country. The Shah left Iran for exile on 16 January 1979, as the last Persian monarch, leaving his duties to a regency council and Shapour Bakhtiar, who was an opposition-based prime minister. Ayatollah Khomeini was invited back to Iran by the government and returned to Tehran to a greeting by several million Iranians. The royal reign collapsed shortly after on 11 February when guerrillas and rebel troops overwhelmed troops loyal to the Shah in armed street fighting, bringing Khomeini to official power. Iran voted by national referendum to become an Islamic republic on 1 April 1979, and to formulate and approve a new theocratic-republican constitution whereby Khomeini became supreme leader of the country in December 1979. The revolution was unusual for the surprise it created throughout the world. It lacked many of the customary causes of revolution, such as defeat in war, a financial crisis, peasant rebellion, or a disgruntled military. The revolution occurred in a nation that was experiencing relative prosperity, produced profound change at great speed, was massively popular, resulted in the exile of many Iranians, and replaced a pro-Western authoritarian monarchy with an anti-Western theocracy based on the concept of Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists. It was a relatively nonviolent revolution, and it helped to redefine the meaning and practice of modern revolutions, although there was violence in its aftermath.

III (b) The Arab Spring and its aftermath “The Arab Spring” of 2011, the general uprisings that occurred throughout the Middle East and North Africa, represented a formative event for the new Arab world. The state structures and institutions that preceded these events in the Arab Mideast, the family monarchies, such as the Gulf states, and what have been called the “republican monarchies” of Mesopotamia and North Africa, were shown to be much weaker than were previously thought. Although the initial uprising was a surprise, instability continued throughout the decade. Asef Bayat, a chronicler of the Arab Spring, begins by delineating the ideologies of change as they apply to the Muslim world, in The Arab Spring and its Surprises (2013:597–599): “Until the mid-1990s, three major ideological traditions carried the idea of revolution as the strategy of

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fundamental change in societies. They included anti-colonial nationalism, Marxism–Leninism and Islamism.” Marxism-Leninism refers to the rise of communist parties that followed the Chinese and Soviet models described in Part I of this review. For the other terms: anti-colonial nationalism—as articulated in the ideas of such figures as Fanon, Nasser, Nehru and Nkrumah—imagined post-colonial societies as radically transformed to end the colonial domination and the supremacy of the national capitalists who served their interests. But the nationalist revolutions had come to a halt in the post-colonial era. For Bayat (2010, 185–188), Islamism refers to the ideologies and movements that, notwithstanding their variations, aim, in general, for the establishment of an Islamic order, a religious state, Islamic laws, and moral codes. Concerns, such as establishing social justice and improving the life of the poor would be only secondary to this strategic target. Militant Islamists, such as al-Gama ‘a ‘al-Islamiyya in Egypt, follow strategies similar to those of the leftist guerrillas in Latin America during the 1960s and 1970s. But they differ from the current jihadist trends, such as groups associated with al-Qaeda. Whereas militant Islamism represents political movements operating within the given nation-states and targeting the secular national-states, the jihadists are transnational in ideas and operations, and represent fundamentally ethical movements. Bayat, referring to Iran, writes as follows (2010:118): “The major challenge to post-Islamist feminism was to demonstrate that the claims for women’s rights were not necessarily alien to Iranian culture or Islam. But, as secular feminists wondered, would operating within the Islamic discourse not constrain endeavors for gender equality when all Muslims, from the very orthodox to the most radical reformers, accept the Qur’an as the literal word of Allah, unchanging and unchangeable?” In other words, the issue of women is never far away in changes in contemporary society, and in the movement for social change. The thesis of Bayat is that the Arab Spring came as a surprise, basically the result of a “subaltern non-movement of the masses” simply fed up with an extremely authoritarian government that had lost its capacity to inspire the masses. There was no hierarchical vanguard party as there was in in the Russian and Chinese cases, and no parliamentary framework that was present in the European/Western experience.

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So, why the surprise? The economist, Timur Kuran, has argued that revolutions come as a surprise because the dissenting population did not reveal their discontent in public. Consequently, the opposition remains hidden from the ears of both adversaries and observers, who then assume that things are stable. But when an accident triggers a protest, the hidden dissenters join forces to create formidable public protestation that may undo authoritarian systems. This sounds like an intriguing argument, but to what extent it resonates with the Arab revolts remains questionable. Indeed, the practice of “public nagging” appears to be a salient feature of public culture in the Middle East, serving as a crucial element in the making of public opinion, or the “political street”. Most of the Islamic world had been colonized, and the western secular powers were role models for development, but they were also foreigners to the culture of the area. Those of Arab or Iranian descent who associated with the leadership were also suspect, and in the post-colonial world established authoritarian regimes with the help of the army. As with many authoritarian systems, they did not accept judicial or journalistic independence. The leaders independent of this secular authority were religious leaders, and in that case the opposition was religious, Islamic.

Part III (c) The rise of the Arab popular movement Discussing Egyptian and Tunisian working class involvement in the Arab Spring, Cole (2014) observes that those members of the poor and working class who were most supportive were found to be comfortable with urbanism and cosmopolitanism (Cole, 2014: 4): “Although their parents live in villages, the Arab Spring millennials, the ‘new generation’ working class, live in cities or close to them. In both Egypt and Tunisia categories of tribe and clan are important, thus signifying the narrowness of ‘traditional’ Muslim society, but these ties weaken with urban migration.” Urban working-class and lower middle-class men make late night forays into the city. This gathering around cities was the urban component (Cole, 2014:6) in a culture that is more cosmopolitan, and includes popular secular music, MTV. The experience of living and working abroad also contributes to secular cosmopolitanism. Also, the millennials, and this includes the working-class millennials, are comfortable with the internet, and may have websites. In or near urban areas there are cyber cafes, but those in rural areas have fewer opportunities to communicate.

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An important point to note here is that this view is very different from the thesis of “working class authoritarianism” that was hotly debated in the western world in the 1960s. The argument employed here is that the attraction of working-class or less-educated Muslims to authoritarianism is the result of a lack of exposure to an urban or a “global” environment, and in Europe, young Muslim men are much more cosmopolitan and sophisticated in the face of low income and prejudice. In the Middle East, transportation and communication facilities have been quite limited up until recently. Muslim society practices a great deal of gender segregation as well, and even when women are located in an urban setting they may not go outside a very restricted “women’s” environment. Many of these practices are breaking down, but that is occurring for the first time in this generation. The principle engine of social mobility in the Muslim world has been the extension of education, but at the same time the weak national economies in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia represent a serious problem for the newly-educated population. Social disorder in both the Arab Spring, from 2010–2012 (Campante, Chor, 2012) and the Algerian antigovernment resistance from 1991–1997 (Appleby, Marty 2002), may have been inspired by the lack of employment opportunities for those with a university education. It is much easier to build institutions of higher education than to support an economy that will provide suitable jobs.

Part III (d) Economic instability From Filipe R. Campante and Davin Chor (2012: 168): “We have argued that the lack of adequate economic opportunities for an increasingly educated populace can help us understand episodes of regime instability such as the Arab Spring. Our work in this area can be viewed in the context of the long-running debate over the “modernization hypothesis”. In the classic view put forth by Lipset (1960), economic and institutional developments tend to go hand-in-hand, and so “modernization”—including the expansion of education—naturally begets democracy. In an alternative view, memorably put forward by Huntington (1968), modernization can instead be destabilizing in the absence of the necessary institutional infrastructure to support the process of change. The Arab Spring and the Syrian revolt led to a contest for power by the major Islamist and fundamentalist Arab popular movement, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. In Tunisia, the Islamist Ennahda party played an important political role, and the movement was also ideologically close to the Algerian revolt and to the rise of Hamas in Palestine.

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III (e) Political Failures of Arab Secularism Their colonial past and their anti-colonial movements set countries of the Islamic world apart from the European, North American, Russian and Chinese modernizing revolutions. In the Muslim world, the failed regimes were those that had liberated the Middle East from colonial rule fifty years ago. There was popular disillusionment with the secular leadership after fifty years of the post-colonial period. Most regimes, religious and secular alike, became authoritarian regimes. Leaders of the post-colonial regimes thought Islam was a figment of the past, but the Islamic movements now appeared as authentic alternatives to Westernization and modernism. Social discontent turned into popular unrest as secular leaderships failed to achieve the changes that seemed possible in the early modernizing period. While the post-colonial regimes did make some inroads in state building, education, employment and agrarian reform, for the most part, they failed to secure democracy, social justice and the independence that they had promised. Most regimes turned into autocracies, military populism, and developmental failures, if they were not overthrown by military coups. By the late 1980s, these post-colonial states were embracing neoliberal policies and austerity programs. Bayat (2010: 7) observed that movements, like Green Wave, Kifaya, and the Cedar Revolution emerged as alternatives to the Islamist trends in the Muslim Middle East. The Islamic and fundamentalist trends came very late in the modernizing process of the Muslim world. Islamic parties appear with the failure of secular Arab socialism—a mix of Pan-Arabism and nonMarxist socialism, which wielded notable impact on political ideas and social developmental arenas in the 1950s and 1960s. The political history of the Middle East begins with modernizing secularists, but these secularists were discredited by the Arab defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War with Israel. Subsequently, Islamist movements have posed perhaps the most serious challenge to secular authoritarian regimes in the region, even though the fundamentalist Islamic vision of political order remained largely authoritarian. Bayat believes that these Islamic movements initially expressed the voice of the mainly middle-class high-achievers, who were products of Arab socialist programs and who, in the 1980s, felt marginalized by the dominant economic and political processes in their societies. Political idealists saw no recourse in the fading socialist movements and growing business orientation of the new politics, and thus charted their dream of justice and power in religious politics.

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It was not until the time of the Arab Spring that there was cooperation between secular leftists and fundamentalists that would not have been previously possible (Cole, 2014: 24). What also characterized the associations that emerged was that they were not vertical top-down organizations as the Leninist-type organizations had been. There is a threeway contest between secular governments, left- w activists, and political Islam. The Republican monarchies, including the Assad family in Syria and Saddam Hussein in Iraq, attacked the secular left, since loyalty to the Republican monarchies or their “old left” alternatives are what separates the new left (not tied to these Leninist parties) from their counterparts. The public had misperceived the initial secularist nationalist leadership as idealistic and not self-serving, an opinion that was quickly reversed once in power. The family cartels in Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon and Yemen had their pre-2012 leaders overthrown in the Arab Spring. The protest originated on the Internet. There is so much comment over news events on the Internet, and in the early stages it could be controlled, but videos make the reality of torture real (Cole, 2014:66). On the Internet, women can claim a space for discourse that they cannot claim in the public sphere, since Arab societies prefer gender separation in the public sphere.

Part IV The cold war, the great split in the Islamic world Instead of bringing about bourgeois liberal democratic states, what resulted from the populist revolutions has been an Iran–Saudi Arabia conflict, referred to as the Middle Eastern Cold War (Beinin, 2016). The split in the Muslim community has been exacerbated by continuing struggle for influence in the Middle East and surrounding regions between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The two countries have provided varying degrees of support to opposing sides in nearby conflicts, including the civil wars in Syria, Yemen and Iraq. The rivalry also extends to disputes in Bahrain, Lebanon, Qatar, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Morocco, as well as broader competition in North and East Africa, parts of South Asia, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. By 2020, American support for Saudi Arabia and its allies, as well as Russian and Chinese support for Iran and its allies, have drawn comparisons to the dynamics of the Cold War era. And yet the context is in many ways quite different. The major difference is the hold that the religious elites in the Muslim world have over the population.

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Saudi Arabia is under the control of strict Sunni Wahhabi conservatism, and in Iran the leaders are the Shi’a clerics themselves. In both cases, there has been an effort to move away from strict controls. For a discussion on the conflict between Iran and Sunni Arab opponents see Beinin (2016, 2020, Freihat 2020). The wave of public protests that swept across the Middle East and North Africa in 2011 led to revolutions in Yemen, Tunisia and Egypt, and the outbreak of civil wars in Syria and Libya. It destabilized three major regional countries, Iraq, Syria and Egypt, creating a power vacuum. These uprisings across the Arab world caused political instability throughout the region. In response, Saudi Arabia enlisted its allies among the member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, a political and economic bloc founded in 1981. The proposal reflected the Saudi government’s preoccupation with preventing potential uprisings by disenfranchised minorities in the Gulf monarchies, as well as its regional rivalry with Iran. The union of Gulf monarchies would have centralized Saudi influence in the region by giving it greater control over military, economic, and political matters affecting member states. As a testament to the fluidity of the situation, the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia strengthened their ties to Israel, which is involved in its own conflict with Iran. Saudi Arabia has also become increasingly concerned about the United States’ commitment as an ally and security guarantor. The U.S. has lessened its reliance on Saudi oil, and the potential of reconciliation with Iran may have contributed to a more assertive Saudi foreign policy. Since 2015, the coalition has comprised 41 member states, all of which are led by Sunni-dominated governments. Shi’a-led Iran, Iraq, and Syria are notably excluded. The initiative is part of the Saudi effort to isolate Iran and its allies. After 2012, the revolutionary influences abated, and the army re-asserted control in Egypt and the Gulf States. Iran took advantage of regional instability by expanding its presence among Shi’as and creating a land corridor of influence stretching from Iraq to Lebanon, done, in part, by supporting Shia militias. While they all share concern over Iran, the Sunni Arab governments, both within and outside of the Gulf area, have long disagreed on political Islam. Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi religious establishment and its top-down bureaucracy differ from some of its allies, such as Qatar which promotes populist Sunni Islamist platforms similar to Erdogan in Turkey.

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Qatar has also drawn criticism from neighboring Sunni countries for its support of controversial transnational organizations, like the Muslim Brotherhood which is Sunni but represents a popular, more working class constituency. Saudi Arabia under King Salman adopted a more assertive foreign policy, particularly reflected in the country’s intervention in Yemen in 2015. Both Israel and Saudi Arabia supported the withdrawal of the U.S. from the multilateral treaty advancing peaceful cooperation between European countries, the more liberal wing of U.S. government and Iran. In anticipation of the withdrawal, Iran indicated it would continue to pursue closer ties with Russia and China. The unilateral decision by the United States, under the more conservative wing led by Trump, drew concerns of increased tensions with Russia and China, both of which are parties to the nuclear agreement. It also heightened tensions in the Middle East, raising the risk of a larger military conflict breaking out involving Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. The United States reinstated sanctions against Iran in August 2018, despite opposition from European allies. The leadership of the Muslim world has been quite flexible in their alliances. Leadership in the Muslim-majority nations such as Iran and Saudi Arabia has been almost uniformly religious rather than secular, thus giving it a fundamentalist character. At the same time, the alliances being developed had secular allies, such as the U.S., Russia and China, thus negating the purely religious character of the changes.

Part V How does the Jewish World fit into this framework? For the Jewish people, in the United States and Europe, a century of assimilation was followed by the rise of Hitler and the Third Reich. These events of the 1930s shocked the assimilated Jews, just as Zionism and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 eventually shocked the Palestinians, the Arabs, the Turks, and the Iranians. From the Jewish Virtual Library, 2011: The worldwide Jewish population was 14.6 million in 2018, less than .005 % of the Muslim population. The global Jewish population is not growing: between 2000 and 2001 it rose by only 0.3%, compared to a worldwide population growth of 1.4%.

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The largest Jewish populations (2018 estimate) are in the United States (6.9 million) and Israel (6.7 million). The rest live in Western, or Western-style countries, such as France (453,000), Canada (390.500), The United Kingdom (290,000), Russia (172,000), Argentina (180,300), and Germany (116,000). In Africa, the largest Jewish population is in the Republic of South Africa (69,000).

Part V (a) Modernization: generational approach and the assimilation of Jews The Jewish community is demographically far removed from the relatively lower income masses of the Muslim world. The Jewish people represent a community now residing in Western Europe and the United States, but with one large component, Israel, located in the heart of the Muslim world. Prior to the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, most of the Muslim countries in the Middle East had sizable populations of Diaspora Jews, as had most Western European countries. Will Herberg’s Protestant, Catholic, and Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology (1955) provided one of the most accepted descriptions of the mass migration of Jews from Europe to the United States. In the United States, Jewish assimilation occurred in three generations. The first generation refers to those immigrants born between I880 and 1915 who began their migration to the U.S. or to Western European cities at the time of the industrial development, when there was high demand for factory workers in the decades before the First World War. The second generation was born about the time of World War I, raising their children during the Depression and World War II. Since Herberg’s book was published in I955, the third generation was born after World War II, and has been called the “boomers”. For Herberg, the effect of life in America on immigrant groups has been to change their rural European village or area identities into an ethnicAmerican identity based on common language and nationality. This process involved the decline of the traditionally-rooted church or synagogue, and the growth of the ethnic church or synagogue in the new setting. There was some adjustment of the rural European religion to the new environment, but Herberg believed that the majority of the first generation maintained religious practices and found the ethnic church in the West an important focus of continuity between the old and the new worlds.

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Unlike the first generation, whose ethnic status provided a source of location and identity, members of the second generation may have had more problems of adjustment than their parents. They were neither fully ethnic nor fully Western. The majority of the second generation may have been confused, anxious and discontented. Many attempted to overcome their ambiguous position by locating themselves on one of the two extremes of the identity spectrum. The second generation either strongly identified with or strongly rejected their ethnic culture and religion. Herberg maintained that the major response of second-generation Jews found that the conflict and inconsistencies between their parents’ traditional culture and American culture presented many problems. He supported his thesis by making the point that, since Jewish ethnicity and religion were bound together, a second-generation Jew who cast off his ethnicity would invariably cast off his parent’s religion. Since the third generation was raised in European or American families that had adopted Western secular and religious culture, the children who grew up in these homes had few problems of cultural conflict and identity. Religion became the core of the third-generation Jew’s self-identity, both as a Jew and as an American. The historical context of this change occurred when Protestantism, once dominant, had to accept an America where all three religions had become part of the “American Way of Life”. In America and in Western Europe, to be a Protestant, Catholic or Jew became acceptable ways of expressing a new identity. Imagine the confusion, 60 years later, of adding “Muslim” to this mix.

Part V (b) Jewish social class structure and its changes By the turn of the twenty-first century, leaders of the American Jewish community were concerned that the changes brought about by assimilation might bring an end to the Jewish community. There were no longer any Jewish neighborhoods in major American cities, and many Jews did not belong to a synagogue. A major survey was commissioned by the Pew Research Foundation, and the Pew Report (2013:2) found that the fears of the leaders of the community were certainly confirmed: The percentage of U.S. adults who say they are Jewish when asked about their religion has declined by about half since the late 1950s and currently is a little less than 2 per cent. Meanwhile, the number of Americans with direct Jewish ancestry or upbringing who consider themselves Jewish, yet describe themselves as atheist, agnostic or having no particular religion appears to be rising and is now about 0.5 per cent of the U.S. adult population.

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The changing nature of Jewish identity stands out sharply when the survey’s results are analyzed by generation. Fully 93 per cent of Jews in the aging generation (born 1914–1927) identify as Jewish on the basis of religion, but just 7 per cent of the youngest describe themselves as having no religion. By contrast, among Jews in the youngest generation of U.S. adults, born after 1980, 68 per cent identify as Jews by religion, while 32 per cent describe themselves as having no religion, and identify as Jewish on the basis of ancestry, ethnicity or culture. (p. 3). “On intermarriage, Pew, 2013:5)” … intermarriage rates seem to have risen substantially over the last five decades. Among Jewish respondents who have gotten married since 2000, nearly 60 per cent have a non-Jewish spouse. Among those who got married in the 1980s, roughly 40 per cent have a non-Jewish spouse. And among Jews who got married before 1970, just 17 per cent have a non-Jewish spouse.

To those who were worried about the subject, it seemed that many American Jews have almost no ties to any Jewish institution at all. The result of the assimilation process during and after the third-generation Jewish community was pronounced. In the U.S., the Jews born about the time of World War II managed to achieve remarkable levels of education and wealth and married non-Jews at a very high rate. By the turn of the twenty-first century, Sussman (2010): “American Judaism faced an undeniable reality. With the exception of a number of Orthodox communities and a few other bright spots in or just off the mainstream of Jewish religious life, American Judaism was in precipitous decline. Not only is enrollment in non-Orthodox Jewish religious educational programs down, so is synagogue affiliation. Philanthropic giving in the religious sector of the Jewish community is also declining. For rabbis, Jewish educators, and communal leaders, it is a difficult moment. Jews are flourishing in America, but organized, institutional Judaism is in deep trouble, particularly after the 2008 economic crisis.” This is, however, the view of self-identifying Jews who see this as a spur to action. For American Jews, accompanying assimilation and intermarriage came political liberalism. Liberalism may not have been the consequence of assimilation, but there was a definite association. From the Pew Report (2013:14): “As a whole, Jews support the Democratic Party over the Republican Party by more than three-to-one: 70 per cent say they are Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party, while 22 per cent are Republicans or lean Republican. Among Orthodox Jews, however, the balance tilts in the other direction: 57 per cent are Republican or lean Republican, and 36 per cent are Democrats or lean Democratic.”

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Similar changes were occurring within the Protestant and Catholic faiths. Members of the communities were moving away from traditional religious practice. What made this development so threatening to Judaism was that, after the large-scale extermination of the European Jewish communities, Jewish Americans made up nearly half the Jews in the world. To some observers, the American Jewish community represented the future of the world (Diaspora) Jewish community. Marshall Sklare (1955) documents the problems of many of the key participants in the American Jewish community that appeared in the 1930s and 1940s. In terms of its religious leadership, for example, Sklare notes the transformation of the rabbinical role from scholar-saint to one that resembles the Protestant minister. The Conservative (a denomination) rabbi assumed new functions—preaching, pastoral work, and priestly duties— because of pressure to compete as a “modern rabbi,” an equivalent of the Reform rabbi, who had this role for over a century. By the 1950s, the stream of Conservative Judaism constituted the vast majority of U.S. religiously-affiliated Jews. The stream of Reform Judaism, which followed few Orthodox Jewish traditional practices, had an extremely high intermarriage rate (estimated to be as high as 80 per cent in many congregations), since it was the only stream that welcomed intermarried couples. Among followers of Reform Judaism, the challenge has been to maintain some semblance of a Jewish presence by bringing intermarried families into congregational life. Jewish engagement is much higher for intermarried Jews who are affiliated with any synagogues than for Jews who are not synagogue members, regardless of their marital status. Most of the American Jewish community, perhaps 60–70 per cent or more, was either unaffiliated with any synagogue or part of the Reform movement, and all that was left was what had once been a strong movement, but now diminished, Conservative Judaism and a small, but growing number of Orthodox Jews, each with perhaps 10–15 per cent of the total Jewish community. By the year 2000, the real problem for those concerned with maintaining a Jewish identity consistent with traditional practice was that Conservative Judaism was failing. The children of Conservative Jewish families were marrying non-Jews and the religious institutions and schools were being abandoned. For the Jewish press, Daniel Gordis wrote (2014: 1): “… barring some now unforeseeable development, the movement’s future is bleak.”

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As Rabbi Edward Feinstein, one of the movement’s leading pulpit rabbis noted at the recent post-Pew United Synagogue Convention, “Our house is on fire …. If you don’t read anything else in the Pew report, [you should note that] we have maybe 10 years left. In the next 10 years, you will see a rapid collapse of synagogues and the national organizations that support them.” The number of American Jewish adults who identify as Conservative and belong to a synagogue has fallen steeply, by some 21 per cent—from 723,000 adult Jewish congregational members in 1990 to 570,000 in 2013. And the number of non-synagogue Conservative Jews —those who say, in effect, “I’m Conservative, but I don’t belong to a congregation”—fell by an even more precipitous 47 per cent, from 739,000 to 392,000. In place of this more secular stream of Judaism was the emergence of a more fundamentalist Orthodox Jewish community. Charles Liebman (1965) demonstrated that Orthodox Judaism, contrary to popular conceptions, was a vital and successful form of American Judaism. He argued that Orthodoxy succeeded precisely because it set boundaries between Judaism and the larger American society (so much for “empathy to the other”). Drawing on the classic sociological distinction between church and sect, he asserted that Orthodox Judaism was increasingly sectarian and rejected the churchlike accommodations of pre-World War II American Orthodoxy. Its sectarianism was its strength, but there was also noted a concern for the lack of self-criticism that grew out of it. His work not only mapped and analyzed institutional life in order to explain Jewish religious vitality in the United States, but also incorporated a prescient critique of the challenges that Orthodox Judaism would come to face. For all the talk about Jewish Orthodoxy, only 10 per cent of American Jews say they are Orthodox, and the children of many Orthodox Jews join streams of Judaism less devoted to traditional practice. The Pew survey (Pew, 2013: 7) also shows that Reform Judaism continues to be the largest Jewish denominational movement in the United States. 35 per cent of all U.S. Jews identify with the Reform movement, while 18 per cent identify with Conservative Judaism; 10 per cent with Orthodox Judaism; and 6 per cent with a variety of smaller groups, such as the Reconstructionist and Jewish Renewal movements. About three-in-ten American Jews (including 19 per cent of Jews by religion and two-thirds of Jews of no religion) say they do not identify with any particular Jewish denomination.

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Though Orthodox Jews constitute the smallest of the three major denominational movements, they are much younger, on average, and tend to have much larger families than the overall Jewish population. This suggests that their share of the Jewish population will grow. In the past, high fertility in the U.S. Orthodox community has been at least partially offset by a low retention rate. Roughly half of the survey respondents who were raised as Orthodox Jews say they are no longer Orthodox. The result has been a section of the American Jewish community far less affluent and with far less secular education: secular Jews were successful but then, according to the Jewish identifiers, they were “not Jews”. With the rise of Orthodox Judaism and with the migration of Russian Jews, a new Jewish community is emerging. In the place of the postwar vision of the affluent Jew was the 2015 face of Jewish poverty, as reported in the Jewish Community Study (2011). In New York City, the city with the largest Jewish population in the world, the 2002 Jewish Community Study showed that there were 226,000 Jews living in poverty. A new special report on poverty (2013) found that 565,000 New Yorkers live in Jewish households below or near the federal poverty line. Twice as many people lived in poor Jewish households at that time compared to 1991. 45 per cent of all children in Jewish households in New York live below or near the poverty line. While the Jewish population increased by only 14 per cent in the New York area over the past two decades, the number of people living in poor Jewish households doubled. The crisis is spreading past New York City, as well. Suburban Jewish communities in the region saw an 86 per cent increase in poverty in just the past decade. Four populations in particular were most represented: Russian speaking, the elderly, immigrants, and large religious households, The report found that poverty is highest in the Russian Jewish community: 72 per cent of Russian-speaking Jewish seniors live in poverty in New York, making up 26 per cent of all poor Jewish households. Many do not speak English, and thus find it hard to get work, obtain Social Security or apply for basic services. 43 per cent of poor Jewish households are composed of seniors who live without anyone under 65. The number of poor children has increased by 10 per cent since 2002, a particularly distressing statistic; 33 per cent of people in poor Jewish households are children younger than 18, and these children come from

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diverse social, economic and geographic backgrounds. Some of these children grow up within large religious families. 63 per cent of Hasidic Jewish families in New York City are poor, making up 17 per cent of all poor Jewish households, although Hasidic households usually have at least one person employed full-time.

Part VI “Fundamentalist” Jewish Zionism and the split in the Jewish community The Holocaust in Europe sent shock waves through the Jewish population. The Holocaust is the term used to describe the genocide of the European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, across Germanoccupied Europe, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews, two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population. The murders were carried out in pogroms and mass shootings, by a policy of extermination through work in concentration camps and gas chambers in German extermination camps. As the horror of the event was absorbed after Nazi Germany was defeated, there was increased support for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine and on May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel. U.S. President Harry S. Truman recognized the new nation on the same day. Although the United States supported the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which favored the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had assured the Arabs in 1945 that the United States would not intervene without consulting both the Jews and the Arabs in that region. The British, who held a colonial mandate for Palestine until May 1948, opposed both the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine, as well as unlimited immigration of Jewish refugees to the region. Great Britain wanted to preserve good relations with the Arabs to protect its vital political and economic interests in Palestine. Soon after President Truman took office in 1945, he established a special cabinet committee under the chairmanship of Dr. Henry F. Grady, an assistant Secretary of State, who entered into negotiations with a parallel British committee to discuss the future of Palestine. In May 1946, Truman announced his approval of a recommendation to admit 100,000 displaced persons into Palestine, and in October publicly declared his support for the creation of a Jewish state. Throughout 1947, the United Nations Special

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Commission on Palestine examined the Palestinian question and recommended the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. On The United Nations adopted Resolution 181 (also known as the Partition Resolution) that would divide Great Britain’s former Palestinian mandate into Jewish and Arab states in May 1948 when the British mandate was scheduled to end. Under the resolution, the area of religious significance surrounding Jerusalem would remain an independent body under international control, administered by the United Nations. Although the United States backed Resolution 181, the U.S. Department of State recommended the creation of a United Nations trusteeship with limits on Jewish immigration and a division of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab provinces, but not states. The State Department, concerned about the possibility of an increasing Soviet role in the Arab world and the potential for restriction by Arab oil producing nations of oil supplies to the United States, advised against U.S. intervention on behalf of the Jews. Later, as the date for British departure from Palestine drew near, the Department of State grew concerned about the possibility of an all-out war in Palestine as Arab states threatened to attack almost as soon as the UN passed the partition resolution. Despite growing conflict between Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Jews, and despite the Department of State’s endorsement of a trusteeship, Truman ultimately decided to recognize the state of Israel. For the Jewish community, the situation has changed considerably since 1948. Whereas the religious and fundamentalist split between Sunni and Shi’a Islam goes back a thousand years, the divisions over Zionism are quite new. As Israel grows in strength and power, as the Palestinian resistance grows in strength and power, and as Muslims increasingly migrate to Europe and to the United States, a threat that seemed far away suddenly seems very close. Compared to Jews in the Diaspora, in Israel the Zionists faced a serious problem. Palestinian resistance to Israel had been a regular feature of life before the beginning of the state. The crisis of 1948 was intensified with the 1967 war and the disgrace of secular leadership of the Arab and Muslim world in the Middle East.

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The expansion of Israel and the expansion of the number of Palestinian refugees introduced the rise of a self-conscious opposition movement that, in turn, gave rise to Jewish groups that opposed Palestinian rights and Israeli Labor Party liberalism. The features of the Zionist radical right were not very clear in the early 1970s but emerged in the face of Palestinian resistance (Sprinzak, 1989). The most important feature of the radical right in Israel was its desire to expand Israeli control at the expense of Palestinians through illegal and extra-legal means. By resorting to extra-legal tactics, the “new right” did not fit into the traditional features of the Israeli nationalist right. The specific group of interest was Gush Emunim (the Block of the Faithful), a religious fundamentalist group committed to establishing Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Members of Gush Emunim believe that they are the true Israelis and the genuine Zionists. News was released on April 27, 1984, that a plot to blow up five Arab buses full of passengers during a crowded rush hour was prevented. Before this, the Israeli public had little knowledge of the extent of this type of activity, that is, Jewish terrorism. Soon afterwards, twenty-seven men suspected of forming an anti-terrorist (anti-Palestinian) network were arrested. Their activities had not begun in 1984. Four years earlier there had been an attempt to assassinate the Arab mayors of three West Bank cities, and a violent incident in an Islamic college in Hebron in 1983 that took the lives of three students and wounded thirty-three. It was found that members of a little-known organization, Gush Emunim, were reported to be responsible for these, and for a score of lesser acts of violence against Arabs. The group had also developed a plan to blow up the Muslim Dome of the Rock on Temple Mount. What surprised observers and political analysts in April 1984 was not so much the existence of the terror group as the identity of its members. Though it was an aggressive settlement movement, Gush Emunim had never openly embraced an ideology of violence. The religious leadership asserted a biblically-based Jewish claim to what was called by secularists the Palestinian West Bank of the River Jordan. In the 1970s, Gush Emunim did not advocate deportation of the Arab population, although this would change. They professed the belief that peaceful and productive coexistence with the Arabs, under benevolent Israeli rule, was both possible and desirable.

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Some of the members of the group were ranking army officers and the heads of large families, and the fact that these men supported terrorism was unexpected. Three months later, another unexpected event occurred: the election to the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, of Rabbi Meir Kahane, an American Israeli religious fundamentalist with a racist agenda. Nearly 26,000 Israelis (1.3 per cent) voted Kach, the political party that called for the expulsion of the Arabs from Palestine. Kahane publicly advocated T.N.T. (Terror Neged Terror), supporting Jewish terrorism against Arab terrorism. Kahane had increased the number of his supporters by a large amount after his showing in the 1984 election. Polls conducted since the summer of 1984 had been steadily giving him between 2.5 and 7 per cent of the total vote. Several attitude studies of high school students indicated exceptional support for Kahane among the young. A general atmosphere of forgiveness of the acts of the Jewish underground had also surfaced. Kahane was assassinated in New York in 1990. Religious fundamentalism, extreme nationalism, and aggressive anti-Arab sentiment by the Zionist right since 1984 suggests that violent incidents on the part of Jewish Israelis are neither accidental nor isolated. It now appears that the Israeli nationalist right, which has been thriving since the Six-Day War (1967), has undergone a significant political and ideological transformation. Originally, Menachem Begin, the leader of Likud, led a unified block, but now the Zionist right has become a fragmented camp politically and ideologically, but the “fragments” are politically powerful. The concept of a “radical right” has been used to describe an important political force in Israel during the expansion and occupation period in the Palestinian territories during the 1980s. The parties of this camp believe that they are the true Israelis and the genuine Zionists. Most of the leaders and followers of the Israeli radical right cherish with intense nostalgia the memories of the Zionist founding fathers, their values and their behavior. The Israeli radicals are nostalgic about the old days of the Yishuv (the Jewish commonwealth in Palestine), the days when each Zionist settlement counted, and Hagenah (defense) was a real thing, the times when Jews worried about Jews, not about Arabs. It appears that both the organization, Gush Emunim, and Meir Kahane, in his writings, believed that the fundamental truths of the Bible are exclusively on the territorial sacredness of the “Kingdom of Israel in the making,” which is the status of the present state of Israel.

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Unlike the ultra-orthodox, anti-Zionist fundamentalists who live by every single rule of Torah law as if the state does not exist and the world has not changed, the fundamentalists of Gush Emunim are very modern, nationalist, and pragmatic. They are full of admiration for the state and the instruments of its sovereignty: the government and the military. In addition, the Israeli radical right, to the right of Likud, with its consistent growth in power and popularity, has a distinctive interpretation of the IsraelPalestine conflict. In their view the Jews who support the Palestine Liberation Organization and collaborate willingly with the enemy, the liberals who care about the sentiments of the international left more than they do about Israel had betrayed the Zionist vision. They believed President Sadat of Egypt (1970–1981), has “fooled” Israel into a phony peace (Oslo accords 1993); and the evil mongers of the U.S. pluralists and globalist politicians and bureaucrats.

Part VI (b) Division in the Jewish Community As far as many in the in the Jewish community are concerned, the parallel to the Sunni-Shi’a split in the Muslim world is the division between rightwing Zionists and the left-liberal secular Jews, the self-hating Jews, people who despise their differences with secular non-Jewish society and yearn to assimilate (Reiter, 2012). The political context of this division is that Jews who criticize Israel are branded as self-hating. The California-based Zionist website, Masada2000, offers a list of more than 8,000 “Self-Hating IsraelThreatening” Jews. Masada2000 names Rabbi Michael Lerner, Woody Allen, and Noam Chomsky as Jews who “know the Truth but hate their heritage to such a degree that nothing else matters to them except bashing Israel right out of existence.” It is rare for Jews inside or outside Israel who are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause to escape accusations of self-hatred. Today, the term “Jewish self-hatred” is frequently used as a smear, such as when it is applied to politically moderate Jews who are critical of Israel; they are traitors to their people. In On the Origins of Jewish Self-Hatred, Reiter points out that the concept of Jewish self-hatred once had decidedly positive connotations. He traces the genesis of the term to Anton Kuhn, a Viennese-Jewish journalist who coined it in the aftermath of World War I, and shows how the German-Jewish philosopher, Theodor Lessing, came, in 1930, to write a book that popularized “Jewish self-hatred.” Reiter contends that, as Kuhn and Lessing used it, the concept of Jewish self-hatred described a complex, and possibly redemptive, way of being Jewish.

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Paradoxically, Jews could show the world how to get past the blight of selfhatred only by embracing their own, singularly advanced self-critical tendencies, their “Jewish self-hatred.” Joshua Muravchik (2014) is far less sympathetic to the Jewish secularist left. He refers to them as refugees from the left, disoriented by the failure of socialism, who, in the end, once again find their bearings on the left. Muravchik’s analysis of this matter comes into clearest focus when he turns from Israeli intellectuals to anti-Israel activists in Western countries. After citing the late Rachel Corrie’s complaints about racism, classism, and sexism, he notes that her “litany of malign-isms” reflected the metamorphosis of Leftism. Conflict between groups continued to be seen as the engine of progress, as Marx had posited, but particularly after the upheavals of the 1960s, race and other demographic categories replaced class as the crucial axis. The left had never been friendly to Israel, Muravchik observes, but in its “new interpretation of history, Israel became a more central target.” Writers like Reitter and Muravchik make no allegiance to Orthodox Jewish thought or practice. As the Jewish right becomes more sharply political, its attention is drawn to the defense of Jewish identity, and the emphasis is on betrayal rather than the religion itself.

Part VII The Clash of Fundamentalisms—To the Future VII (a) It does not have to be this way Although many people present evidence from sacred texts of Islam or Judaism, it is perfectly clear that most members of these religions cannot, or do not choose to, read and follow these texts literally. Islamic religious elites did not bring about the failure of secularism in the Muslim world, rather, the failures were the result of difficulties of political and military leaders in the post-colonial period following the Second World War. The Islamic movements have actually been late-comers in the Middle East. The first stages of economic and political modernization were associated with secularism in Egypt, Iran, Algeria, and Iraq in the 1950s and early 1960s. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk took power in Turkey in the 1920s. For the Arabs, the increasingly autocratic nature of state rule, the disappointment of economic development, the devastating defeat in the 1967 war, all essentially ended the golden era of the liberal secular dream. Secular rule came at the wrong time in history, before 1967. Secular militarily rule was riddled with incompetents and traitors.

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It is out of this historical context that the Islamic movement was born. Now, of course, we have a generation of Muslims who attempt to glorify their past by adhering to what they believe to be Islamic values, specific ideals of national heritage and unique traditions of the culture of their homeland. These are used to create an identity that completely represents to them an authentic religious, national or ethnic ideology. With new capacity for action and self-definition, suppressed minorities often feel obligated and able to confront their past, recover exiled cultures, rediscover social roles and subjectively recast their identities. As to those who support Zionism, hostility between Israel and its neighbors has been understood as a fact of life. They see Israel as an underdog even though it has received massive military support and funding from the United States. Haggai Ram, a political scientist in Israel, sees this fear (originally of Arabs, now of Iran) as a phobia, an obsession. He writes (1997:2): “For nearly three decades Israelis have understood the enmity between Iran and Israel to be a manifestation of a perceived opposition between a backward, Islamic, religious, and Oriental dictatorship, on the one hand, and a modern, Jewish, secular, and Western democracy on the other hand.” There is a rivalry for influence and power in the Middle East, and there is widespread sympathy for the Palestinian cause. These observations apply to the major Sunni states, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and to the post1979 regime in Iran. Haggai Ram believes that there is a “moral panic” in Israel over Iran. Even if this panic exaggerates the situation, the Israelis believe it. There has been no “inevitability” concerning the conflict of Israel and its Muslim neighbors, nor an inevitability in the conflict between Sunni and Shi’a regions.

Part VII (b) Mass Movements and the Fundamentalist Clash As I attempted to demonstrate in the discussion of “Jewish modernization”, Israel’s success over the past six decades was inspired by a frightening historical event, the rise of the Nazi \movement in Germany, and its near success at world conquest. An enormous effort of many in the world Jewish community led to the creation of the state of Israel, one of the few political acts in the post-war world that involved cooperation among all members of the United Nations Security Council.

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Almost immediately, the state of Israel had its first test. Its Arab neighbors and residents, confused, largely traditional in character, conducted a rather ineffective war in 1948. The situation is very different now. The Muslim world is undergoing a revolutionary political-cultural transformation accompanying economic change. Just as earlier social uprisings have had an ideological cause to lead them forward, this revolution includes the Palestinian issue within a neo-colonial context. At a time when Western analysts believe the great period of revolutions had run their course in the post-war period in the 1970s, new revolutions have appeared. These modernizing conflicts involve disputed areas all over the world, and the focus is now on anti-imperialism, rather than the proletariat. Following the usage by an Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe (2017: Conclusion: 145–148), Settler Colonialism is a contemporary term that has often been applied to two nations in particular: the Republic of South Africa (1910–1992) and the State of Israel. The term was certainly applicable to the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. But the other nations involved appear to be actively committed, granting full citizenship rights for their indigenous populations. Settler colonialism seeks to replace the original population of the territory with a new society of settlers. As with all forms of colonialism, it is based on domination by “outsiders”, typically organized or supported by an imperial authority. In South Africa and what was then (prior to 1948) Palestine, the imperial power was Great Britain. The characterization of Israel as a settler colonial state has as its intellectual origins the French historian Maxime Rodinson (1973), and later, in Joseph Massad (2006) and Ilan Pappe (2014). Settler colonialism often involves ethnic cleansing, ranging from violent depopulation of the previous inhabitants to administrative legal means involving assimilation, or recognition of indigenous identity within a colonial framework. The colonizing authority generally views the settlers as racially superior to the previous inhabitants, which may give settlers’ social movements and political demands greater legitimacy than those of colonized peoples in the eyes of the home government. Control of the land is the key resource in settler colonies, whereas control of natural and human resources are the main incentives for other forms of colonialism. Normal colonialism typically ends in the long run, whereas settler colonialism lasts indefinitely, except in the rare event of complete evacuation or settler decolonization. The important issue since 1948 in Israeli settler colonialism is that the Palestinian Arabs living in the “occupied territories” of Israel, “East Jerusalem”, the West Bank and the

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Gaza Strip, cannot be allowed to acquire full citizenship in the Jewish State. To what has already been occupied, the Syrian Golan Heights, seized by Israel after the 1967 war, represent a sizeable expansion of territory. The case of apartheid in the Republic of South Africa was settled within the legal framework of the state. Legal proceedings in Australia and Canada have challenged settler rights, thus giving legal status to the “natives”. In the United States, Western Australia, and South Africa, governments used land allotment as a legal way to take possession of Indigenous peoples’ land. In Israel, the elimination of the possibility of two independent states is accomplished through the encouragement of building settlements beyond the original borders established by the UN. Thus, the number of Israeli settlers on the West Bank reached 300,000 in 2012 (Guardian, 2012), and to that total it would be necessary to add the settler population of East Jerusalem and occupied Syria, the Golan Heights. Due to Israeli government subsidies, the number increases annually. In 2017, the number was estimated at 330,000 (Ha’aretz, 2017), often attracting the poorest Israelis, the ultra-orthodox and recent Russian immigrants. In this view of the identity movements, the Palestinian movement would appear as a liberating focus, and the support of Iran, factions in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq indicate the existence of a liberation movement. There are Israeli groups which see the support for Palestinian causes as a liberating movement (see Turner, p.52). These groups are Boycott from Within, and Zochrot, which were organized in the Gaza War-era after 2002, and were motivated by the realization of the failure of the Oslo Accords to acknowledge that alternative understandings of the conflict and visions for the future were not only necessary but increasingly urgent. The end of effective peace negotiations between Isrjael and the Palestinians produced the acrimonious debate regarding the desirability of the two-state solution. Many Palestinians believe that so much of the West Bank of the River Jordon that was to form the basis of Palestine has been confiscated that the two-state solution may no longer feasible. The solution, they argue, lies in Israel-Palestine going through a process of “de-Zionization” and decolonization. They argue that this will be achieved through activities and actions in solidarity with Palestinians to end the occupation, end privileges for Jews, and give Palestinian refugees displaced in 1948 and 1967 the right to return. There is no consensus amongst the activists in these groups whether this will lead to one state or two states, but there is a consensus that these changes are necessary to bring about a just and peaceful solution.

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Just as followers of the revolutionary tradition have their view of the future, those who oppose this have their own view of it. The response of the United States, to a lesser extent Europe, and certainly Israel, is to see the conflicts in the Middle East as part of a war on terror. This war has included U.S. troops sent to Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Pakistan, and Israeli troops sent to Lebanon and Syria. Again, calling this a war on terror transforms Palestine and Lebanon (together with Iraq and Afghanistan) into what are now called “failed states”, and to amorphously mark their respective populations “terrorists”, whose blood can be shed with impunity. The use of the word “terror” vindicates the violence and destruction wrought by the Israeli military in the Palestinian territories and in Lebanon. By implicating Iran as the main villain in a war purportedly extending from Afghanistan to Pakistan, through Iraq into Palestine, Lebanon, Somalia, and ever onward, Israel sought to designate Palestine and Lebanon as “spaces of exception.” In so doing, Israel hoped (and was to a large extent able) to take Palestinian and Lebanese populations outside the domain of humanity and render them outcasts from whom the rights and protections of international law could be systematically withdrawn. Haggai suggests that Israel was able to legitimize this process by relocating the discourse of the war on terrorism to the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and to assert that the cause of the problem is Iran.

Part VII (c) The rise of the authoritarian state Larry Jay Diamond is an American political sociologist and leading contemporary scholar in the field of democracy studies in the democracy program at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. He edits the Journal of Democracy, and I cite this to underline the international consequences of identity politics, religious fundamentalism, and constant foreign intervention (2020: 36): Since 2006, democracy in the world has been trending downward. A number of liberal democracies are becoming less liberal, and authoritarian regimes are developing more repressive tendencies. Democracies are dying at the hands of elected authoritarian populists who neuter or take over the institutions meant to constrain them.

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In an authoritarian form of government, the citizens are disconnected from the selection of their leaders. Authoritarianism is also broadly aligned with centralized authority and a lack of political freedoms, a situation that existed prior to the current renewal of religious fundamentalism. The authoritarian nature of fundamentalist leadership does not offer much promise of electoral compromise. The interesting thing is how stable the authoritarian rule has become over the passage of time, before and after the Arab Spring of 2011. As Hassan Ammar reported (The Atlantic, October 2018): “Authoritarian regimes and activist militaries counted on American and European acquiescence or even support, and this made Arab regimes seem more durable than they actually were, and the task of unseating them more daunting. “In other words, organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood, which pledged itself to democracy when it was out of power, were much stronger than they appeared to be, and the secular regimes were weaker. Before and during the Arab Spring, the Islamic parties supported democracy. In January 1992, the leadership of Algeria’s largest Islamist party, the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), as it was on the verge of electoral success, was afraid that the military was preparing to move against the Islamists. But it was too late. The secular military aborted the elections, launching a massive crackdown and plunging Algeria into a civil war that would claim more than 100,000 lives.

As Diamond points out (2020: 40), from the mid-1970s up until the late 1980s, democracy spread mainly to countries with favorable conditions. That is, these countries, such as Turkey, had some claim to at least middleincome status. These prerequisites had been laid out. Moreover, many of these countries had been democracies before, or at least they were in regions—Western Europe, Latin America, East Asia—that had either many democracies or a strong linkage to the United States. Then, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, democracy spread to former communist states and to many of the poorest states in the world, principally in Africa but also in Asia. European and U.S. pressure, support, and conditionality were crucial to holding these democracies in place. New democracies, according to Diamond, knew that generous flows of Western aid, investment, and diplomatic support depended, in part, on them respecting democratic norms, such as free elections, presidential term limits, judicial autonomy, and space for independent media and civil society organizations. Non-democracies knew that they would fare better with the West if they at least gestured toward these democratic values and restrained their authoritarian tendencies.

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Then, several things changed in the international environment. First, the Western democracies became preoccupied with the Global War on Terror and other security and economic interests. Security concerns had heightened after the 9/11 terror attacks, and they grew steadily in importance with the rise of radical Islamist groups in East and West Africa and Southeast Asia. More recently, concern with stemming the tide of immigration, especially from the Middle East and Africa, has shaped the foreign policies of European countries. Second, China and Russia emerged as powerful competitors for international influence. China became the largest builder of physical infrastructure in developing countries, as well as the largest provider of development assistance, if one ignores the extent to which this aid was delivered through lending at commercial rates, creating a fearsome debt trap in many countries. To Diamond, when the George W. Bush administration invaded Iraq in 2003 and did not find evidence of weapons of mass destruction, it sought to justify the costly invasion with a massive, high-stakes effort at democratic nation-building. The result was a prolonged period of violent conflict in which the formal introduction of democratic institutions was undermined by insurgency and civil strife. This tarnished the idea of “democracy promotion,” as well as perceptions of the American democracy’s effectiveness and ability to realize its will abroad. The very limited success of the parallel U.S. effort in Afghanistan further contributed to the backlash. U.S. power and standing in the world suffered another blow in September 2008, when complications in the subprime-mortgage market in the United States erupted into the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression. This was a crisis bred by greed and the failure of government oversight in the United States, and it added to the swelling global cascade of doubts about the model of liberal democracy and market capitalism. All these shocks spawned a crisis of confidence within the democratic West, and hastened its pullback from the most forward-leaning days of democracy promotion—a trend that became particularly pronounced under the leadership of Donald Trump. It will be interesting to see in the post-Trump period whether this tendency towards authoritarianism can be reversed. It is not surprising, then, that the 30-year period of democratic expansion drew to a halt around 2006, as these global developments were dramatically changing the balance of international power and perceptions.

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Adding to the mix were several deeper trends driven by technological change (especially the revolutions in information technology and artificial intelligence), the uneven distribution of the gains from globalization, and the weakening of government regulation and social policy. Inequality was dramatically increasing, and a gulf was opening up in advanced industrial democracies between the younger, more educated, cosmopolitan, and technologically sophisticated populations of the cities and the older, less “globalized” populations of rural and small town areas.

Part VIII Conclusion What do we learn by comparing Jewish and Muslim fundamentalism? We began by looking at the classical model of modernization, used by Lipset, Lerner, and Diamond. The theory of social modernization was evolutionary and scientific, and there was no need for the horror and bloodshed of war and revolution. Democracy and modernity appeared to go hand-in-hand since education expands and many families in the population have disposable income. There is a continuum of culture, work, governance, and education associated with development theory, and with good political leadership in power, this will be supported and rewarded in the form of foreign aid by the United States. As everyone who has followed these events in contemporary history realizes, the protest, the fall of the Pahlevi regime in Iran, the Arab Spring, all came as a surprise. A “modernization” model of change, developmental political economics was embraced by social scientists. This model experienced bumps in the road, and the most convenient term for this problem was “terror”. Some effort had to be taken to deal with the conflict, but once that war was won, everything would go back to “normal”. By comparing Jewish and Muslim fundamentalist movements we see the classical model in a new light. A smooth transition from traditional to modern society has never occurred. In Europe, the World Wars and the Russian revolution represent a dramatic reminder that authentic movements of social change are always a “surprise” to the ruling class. The fall of the monarchies and the rise of the communist parties was never anticipated in 1914 as World War I began. It was widely believed in the late 1930s that Nazi Germany could not be defeated. The notion that a country as economically crippled as the Soviet Union after 1945 could compete with the United States and Europe is hard to believe.

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The analysis by Hobsbawm presents us with a conflict model of social change. It is not that religious movements were in any way predicted by this alternative analysis of change, but it does point us towards the analysis of social class and conflict. A revolutionary movement, a change in the elite, may articulate what the new issues actually are, rather than to simply articulate popular satisfaction with the system. With the introduction of the Muslim working class into the economy and the polity, we see the introduction of instability, the discontinuity of education and the economy, the loss of status that occurs even if other sectors are rising. Much of this framework was incorporated by the analysis of Bayat, Cole, and Beinin. With the rise of an identity-oriented Zionist movement in the Jewish population we recognize the basis of the fear, that it may be that Israel survives only with the assistance of the West. What may emerge is a movement that is both working-class and Muslim. The way that the leadership comes to terms with this movement will determine the future of the Islamic world.

Bibliography Appleby, R. Scott and. Marty, Martin E. 2002. “Fundamentalismီ”. Foreign Policy, No. 128 (Jan.–Feb. 2002), pp. 16–18+20–22: Washington post. Newsweek Interactive, LLC Bayat, Asef 2010, 2013. Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East. Amsterdam University Press © ISIM / Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2010 ISBN 9780804769242 Bayat, Asef 2013. “The Arab Spring and its Surprises”. Development and Change 44(3): 587–601. DOI: 10.1111/dech.12030 2013 International Institute of Social Studies. Beinin, Joel (2016) Workers and Thieves: Labor Movements and Popular Uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt Stanford University Press, 2016. Beinin, Joel (2020) Arab Workers and the Struggle for Democracy Jacobinhttps://jacobinmag.com/2020/05/arab-spring-workers-struggledemocracy-unions?utm_source=Jacobin&utm_campaign=5f66f9cd84EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_10_01_07_50_COPY_01&utm_medium =email&utm_term=0_be8b1b2846-5f66f9cd8485441565&mc_cid=5f66f9cd84&mc_eid=97ddc9ad69ီ

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Black, Ian 2013. Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/19/muslimbrotherhood-poised-prosper-egypt Campante, Filipe R; Chor Davin (2012). “Why was the Arab World poised for Revolution: Schooling, Economic Opportunities, and the Arab Spring. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 26,2:167–188. Cole, Juan, 2014. The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation is Changing the Middle East. Simon and Schuster, New York. Dekker, Paul & Ester, Peter. (2006). “Working-Class Authoritarianism: A Re-Examination of the Lipset Thesis”. European Journal of Political Research. 15. 395–415. 10.1111/j.1475–6765.1987.tb00884.x. Diamond, Larry. “Breaking Out of the Democratic Slump.” Journal of Democracy, vol. 31 no. 1, 2020, p. 36–50. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/jod.2020.0003. Emerson, Michael O., Hartman, David, 2006. “The Rise of Religious Fundamentalism”. ီAnnual Review of Sociology, 32 (2006): 127–144 Fraihat, Ibrahim March 2020. Iran and Saudi Arabia. Taming a Chaotic Conflict 9781474466189 Gest, Justin (2015). “Reluctant pluralists: European Muslims and Essentialist identities.” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 38:11, 1868–1885, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2014.920092 Gordis, Daniel, 2014. Conservative Judaism: A Requiem Winter 2014 https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/566/requiem-for-amovement/ Guardian, 2013. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/apr/02/whoare-the-muslim-brotherhood) Ha’aretz, October 8, 2017. https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/meretz-israels-zionist-left-party-is-finished-1.5456309 Herberg, Will 1955. Protestant, Catholic, and Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1955; Hobsbawm, Eric J. (1999). The Age of Revolution, 1789–1848. California: Textbook Publishers. Huntington, Samuel P. 1968. Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Iqtidar, Humeira and Lehmann, David, 2011. Fundamentalisms and Charismatic Movements: Critical Concepts in Religions Routledge, New York, 2011 Jewish Community Study of New York: 2011 Special Report on Poverty,” https://www.ujafedny.org/news/new-report-reveals-dramatic-rise-inpoverty-in-jewish-community/

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Jewish Virtual Library 2011. (https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewishpopulation-of-the-world 2011 estimate)) Keddie, Nikki (2003). Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-09856-1. Lerner, Daniel. The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East. New York, Free Press, 1958. Liebman, Charles. “Orthodoxy in American Jewish Life” in the American Jewish Year Book 1966, pp. 21–92, 1965. Lipset, Seymour (1960) Political Man: The Social Basis of Modern Politics. New York: Doubleday. Makofsky, David, Unal, Bayram and Abudugayiti, Maimaitijiang 2017. Social class and Islamic Identity: Chinese Uyghur Students and Working Class in Turkey presented at ATINER, 3rd Annual International Conference on Anthropology, 12-15 June 2017, Athens, Greece Massad, Joseph A. (2006). The Persistence of the Palestinian Question: Essays on Zionism and the Palestinians. London: Routledge. ISBN 0415-77010-6. Moaddel, Monsoor (1999). Religion and Women: Islamic Modernism vs. Fundamentalism Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 37:1 108130 Muravchik, Joshua 2014. Making David into Goliath: How the World Turned against Israel, Encounter Books, ISBN 978-1-59403-735-1 Owen, J. Judd. The Task of Liberal Theory after September 11. Perspectives on Politics. 2, 2: 325-330. Pappe, Ilan, 2017. Ten Myths about Israel. Verso, London, New York. Pew Research Center, October 2009. Mapping the Global Muslim Population: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Muslim Population”. Pew Research Center, 2013. A Portrait of Jewish Americans. Qutb, Sayyid 2003, Milestones. Kazi Publications, Chicago. Ram, Haggai (1997) Iranophobia: The logic of an Israeli Obsession. Stanford University Press Stanford, California Rodinson, Maxime (1988, 1973) Israel: A Colonial-Settler State? (1988) New York: Anchor Foundation, 1988, ©1973. ISBN 0-913460-22-2 Salon 2016 (https://www.salon.com/2016/01/06/saudi_arabia_funds_and_exports_ islamic_extremism_the_truth_behind_the_toxic_u_s_relationship_with _the_theocratic_nation/) Shah, Hemant, 2011. The Production of Modernization: Daniel Lerner, Mass Media, and the Passing of Traditional Society. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2011. ISBN: 9781439906158.

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Shiner, Larry 1975 Tradition /Modernity: An Ideal Type Gone Astray. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 17(2), pp. 245–252 Sklare, Marshall (1955). Conservative Judaism. Glencoe, IL: Free Press Sprinzak, Ehud (1989) The Emergence of the Israeli Radical Right Comparative Politics, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Jan), pp. 171–192. Sussman, Lance, 2010. Prospects for American Judaism. https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/202/prospects-for-americanjudaism/ Thompson, E. P. (1991). The Making of the English Working Class. Toronto: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-013603-6.

ON THE LIMITATIONS OF DEMOCRACY AS A POLITICAL SYSTEM1 HAKAN KÖNI POLITICAL SCIENCE AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION ANKARA SCIENCE UNIVERSITY

“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.” Winston Churchill

Introduction Democracy is generally accepted as the best political system among all the political systems that have historically been tried. So much so, that an idea like the return from democracy to any kind of monarchy or oligarchy is not likely to be taken seriously by any political analyst, or be supported by any serious political or social organization in contemporary life. The belief in the superiority of democracy against its alternatives is usually based on propositions such as that democracy makes the people their own rulers, that it facilitates political change by peaceful means without any need for revolution and bloodshed, that it keeps the rulers accountable to the people via periodical elections and other political mechanisms, and that it enhances the political awareness of the people, as well as the quality of political life by giving them roles in it. But despite all these basic virtues, democracy has some notable limitations and weaknesses, which are discussed in this chapter with reference to the theses that, first, quite a number of the leading contemporary democracies, like the U.S., the U.K., France, etc., have been implicated in serious human rights violations, claiming the lives of millions of people in their overseas operations; second, so many leading democracies maintain hereditary crowns and aristocratic parliaments not liable to the general public at all; third, in countries divided along ethnic lines, 1

This paper was first published at the Journal of the Institute of Social Sciences of Kafkas University 21(1–3): 237 –246.

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democracy leaves the ethnic minorities at the mercy of the majority; fourth, almost all democracies are troubled with rampant corruption of various kinds by the elected politicians; fifth, democracy delegates various policy areas that must be managed with knowledge, expertise and prudence under popular control; sixth, the change of the offices of political authority in electoral periods of four to five years produces difficulties from time to time in maintaining stable, orderly and time-taking state policies; seventh, highly likely coalition governments and fragmented parliaments in democracies occasionally produce weak, non-functional, instable and ineffective governments and parliaments; and lastly, democracy places individual choice over and above the religious, moral, social and cultural codes of any particular society that serve critical functions in combating crime, radicalism and other problems of society.

The Undeniable Virtues of Democracy The virtues of democracy are many: its most important virtue is, without question, the fact that it provides the people with the means and opportunities to take their rulers, governors and legislators from the citizenry. In democracies, by using their votes in the periodically organized elections, citizens elect certain other citizens as the authority to lead the government and to make the laws on their behalf. In this way, democracy comes to restore political power to the people from kings and the nobility, who claim to have a legitimate right from their forefathers to exercise power, and thus turns the people into the owners and arbiters of political power rather than its subjects, figurants, and perhaps victims too. Democracy balances the weight of political power among the people in this process by dispensing to them the same single vote to exercise the political power, and making them equals in terms of rights and liberties. The democratic institution of periodically organized elections allows the people to change their elected rulers if they choose to do so; for instance, if they violate their authority, if they become tyrannical, if they are implicated in acts of corruption, or if voters are not pleased with their performance, or for any other reasons they consider to be important. Democratic elections thus serve as an institution of political accountability by which the people monitor and evaluate the practices of the elected statesmen and women, and reward or punish them with their votes as they see fit (Wojtasik, 2013: 31– 32).

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Democracy facilitates political change by simple and nonviolent means. The goals people try to achieve by resorting to revolution, bloodshed or violence with liberal, Marxist, religious or other motivations could be given a fair, peaceful and less costly chance of success through the democratic norms and institutions of elections, political parties, civil society organizations, and a copious list of human rights and freedoms. By practicing their freedoms of thought, belief, meeting, gathering and propaganda, and by establishing or supporting political parties and civil society organizations that represent their ideas, by joining in the elections for this purpose, the people could introduce all the changes they wanted without violence if they secured the support of the necessary ratio of the people, provided that the implementation of their goals did not jeopardize the rights and the freedoms of others (Kinsella and Rousseau, 2008: 484–487). Finally, democracy serves as a kind of political school for people to make them more aware of political issues, and to enhance the general quality of political life. Democracy involves people in political life and enables them to take part in the state affairs as participants, thinkers, evaluators, decisionmakers, and practitioners. By making them the ultimate source of political power, with the right to vote and be voted for, democracy encourages the people to develop views on political issues, which they share and deliberate with the others, to establish or support political organizations and movements for their advancement, and to undertake duties in various public offices. In this way, democracy not only enhances the knowledge, awareness and inventiveness of the people on political issues, it also leads them to be constructive agents of good governance (Almond and Verba, 1989; Conway et. al, 1996).

Limitations and Weaknesses of Democracy The above-mentioned virtues of democracy are undeniable with regard to proving it a far better political system than its classical alternatives. But democracy is also troubled by some serious limitations and weaknesses, mostly in its practice, but also in its theory, that undermine its credibility. To start with, Jack Goody (2005: 10, 16) draws attention to some situations where various leading democratic countries compete with authoritarian regimes in massively violating the democratic political norms and institutions they claim to struggle for. The U.S. war in Iraq which began in 2003, stands as a remarkable case in point here.

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The reason for the start of the war was explained by the U.S. as the Iraqi government’s support of al-Qaida and its development of weapons of mass destruction, but none of these claims has been proved to be true.2 x The apparent cause of the war was changed to be a fight against tyranny and to introduce democracy and human rights in Iraq, but this is also very far from being a legitimate excuse for war at the present stage of international law. However, it was the scale of the human casualties that discredited the U.S. war in Iraq more than anything else, as the number of Iraqi deaths was between 200,000 and 500,000, according to the most and the least optimistic surveys (Hagopian et. al. 2013). And the estimates indicate that more than 70 per cent of the casualties were civilians.3 x For Goody (2005: 10, 16), Israel stands as another stark example of how high standards of freedom and democracy enjoyed by a country can go together with its massive violations of human rights. Freedom House ranks Israel as the freest and the most democratic country in the Middle East with its freedom score ranging between 1.5 and 2 out of 7 since 1998,4 but Goody asks what democracy means if it ends up with the election of governments responsible for the most terrible massacres in recent history. Could it be possible to establish a democratic state on a land occupied in violation of international law, and could it be consolidated with further territorial expansion and liquidation of the natives of a land?5

2

If Saddam had been motivated to support al-Qaida in order to organize attacks on the US, the US war in Iraq could have been easily justified. But initiating a war against a country for its development of WMDs remains highly controversial. 3 This is just the number of deaths. The total number of casualties is much higher if the injured, homeless and other casualties are also taken into account. 4 Freedom House ranks countries according to their degree of freedom on a spectrum ranging from 1 to 7, 1 being the highest and 7 being the lowest grade. Israel receives such high grades from Freedom House because Freedom House assesses the democratic performance of the countries by reviewing their records within their borders and towards their people only. 5 Israeli statesmen often try to justify the occupation of Palestine by the Jewish religious doctrine that the Palestine is a land promised to them by God, but international law cannot accommodate any such claims. And one could imagine how the world political landscape would look like if such religious doctrines were used and tolerated as justifications for acts of aggression.

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Israel also benefits generously from the support of a powerful coalition of democratic states in the world led by the U.S. It was, again, very ironic from a democratic point of view that in a peace plan sketched by the U.S, in 2003, Palestine was urged to depose its democratically elected president, Yasser Arafat, as a precondition for the start of the peace negotiations.6 x A good deal of the leading liberal democracies of our time happen to possess hereditary crowns entrusted with various executive and legislative powers, including Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Australia, Spain, New Zealand, Sweden and Norway among many (Bulmer, 2017: 3–17; Low, 1988). And still others have senates and upper houses to which the candidacy is limited to various qualifications and virtues, while some people don’t even get elected but are appointed directly, like the ones in the U.K, Canada and Sweden. Such a phenomenon is against the very basis and the spirit of democracy as democracy essentially means rule by the people, assigning sovereignty to the people in its entirety. Moreover, it is the election of the legislative and the executive by the people that makes a system essentially democratic. One is, therefore, prompted to ask the question how far the western pressures for democratization on various countries should be heeded while so many of them prefer to preserve their traditional non-democratic political institutions. Is it not comprehensible for the non-democratic world to adopt paths of modernization in accordance with their traditional political norms and institutions, for instance, as it is commonly done by western states by leaving a number of democratically very important criteria out of the analysis perhaps like, in their case, the design of the laws and the political institutions according to their legal and political traditions? x In societies divided on various sociological lines—ethnical, racial, religious, ideological, etc.—the one-man, one-vote proposition of democracy may not produce especially ideal outcomes for, in such societies, there happens to be a very high likelihood of the political parties exploiting identity divisions to eventually make one (or a coalition) of such groups the winner of the elections at all times. 6

The 2016 US presidential elections brought to the attention of the international community one more striking development in the context: Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton promised that the unconditional US support to Israel would continue in case of their election.

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Problems that could appear in such situations include underrepresentation in the parliament or government, leading to loss of identity or ethnic cleansing. Against such concerns, for instance, Arend Lijphart (1977) offers the solution of power-sharing and consociationalism as a more ideal model, which he dissociates from democracy with the distribution of legislative, executive, judicial, administrative, and all the other powers and offices to the people according to their ratio in the population; and the assignment of a veto power to each group so that they are not left at the mercy of the other groups. x Democracies can suffer from various types of corruption, the news of which frequently appears in the media as a problem that can never be successfully eliminated, leading to major political instabilities in the countries concerned. And such practices can sometimes be terribly institutionalized. Political parties, for instance, often appeal for monetary contributions from donors to organize effective electoral campaigns, which often makes them pay special attention to their individual concerns after the elections. But more important for concerns of corruption, democracy gives the winner of the elections the authority to manage and distribute the economic resources of the country. Once elected to the public offices, they enjoy privileged access to the economic resources of the country with their executive and legislative powers, and there are so many different ways for them to collect gains in an unfair way. Even though there could be proper mechanisms of accountability in democracies, the units of accountability are informally accountable to the elected politicians who could interrupt the processes of accounting at many points, and who could inflict serious punishments on those seeking to hold them to account if they, for instance, try to uncover corruptive practices of the elected politicians. And, again, people could be manipulated very easily by money and media in democratic countries. The politicians could, for instance, buy, bribe or intimidate the media to give greater voice and weight to their campaign against their opponents; they can offer such favors towards various public figures of importance to advertise them; and they can simply buy the votes of the people.

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Jobs and other types of benefits for votes are undeniably a very common practice in many current democracies (Rose-Ackerman, 1999; Pani, 2011).7 x In a democracy, the people play a direct role in the course of state policies by voting for the candidates who will implement them in line with the citizens’ wishes, but there are various policy areas in every state that must be governed by expertise, knowledge and prudence in isolation from popular influence for accurate and desired outcomes. Examples can be given for this from the area of economic policy. Leading democracies of our time, like the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Canada, etc., all suffer from heavy public debt burdens, and they experience great difficulties in bringing this under control. While conventional wisdom tells us that they must cut down on their debt and expenditure to protect their economic and national sovereignty, they happen to follow the popular but unwise way of prioritizing jobs, welfare and various other policies that require government expenditure. Democracy thus gives the articulate and the uneducated, the experienced and the inexperienced, the wise and the mediocre, the able and the unable, the professor and the illiterate the same single vote to shape public policy (Brennan, 2016: 6–17; Arneson, 2009: 200–205). x The periodic four- or five-yearly elections have many benefits in democracies, but they bring about some problems as well, especially when the elections give rise to a new winner that challenges the policies of its predecessor. The party(s) in government introduce so many policies, projects and programs as per its duty by investing so much from various state resources throughout its term(s) in office, but such policies are often criticized by its rivals, whether the criticism is politically useful or not.

7

Further to that, in our time, in order to win elections, political parties in democracies promise the electorate more than the resources of the country can bear. This may lead to the neglect of various national interests and victimize electoral minorities. The issue of minimum wages was a case in point in the November 2015 Turkish general election. The competing parties promised to increase the minimum wage at rates of 30, 40 and 50%, and the AK Party, the winning party, carried out its promise to increase it by 30%, but to the dismay of the employers, who were not ready to bear such a financial burden. 10% of the increase is met by the Treasury, which in turn places a new burden on the national budget.

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And if such rival parties win the elections, what is done and invested by the previous government is cancelled in part or whole in almost all democracies. The democratic change of public office over such short periods, and under the condition of fierce electoral rivalry poses a major blow to the political and economic well-being of democratic countries. Conventional political wisdom tells us that state policies must bear continuity and stability for them to prove their utility and for the wise use of state resources. To illustrate, Turkish democracy faces such a threat now with the AK Party Government having introduced so many projects and programs since it came to power while, according to its rivals, many government policies are wrong and must be abandoned. The rivals of the AK Party often argue that if they won the election they would cancel most of those projects and programs, despite so many resources having already been spent on them. x Establishment of a coalition government is a very frequent phenomenon in democracies, particularly in parliamentary democracies with a proportional electoral system, where the people don’t vote for the government directly in elections, but rather for the parliament that will produce the government, which remains a proven cause of political instability and inertia. In many parliamentary democracies, parties often fail to secure more than 50 per cent of the vote, and are thus required to form a coalition with other parties. And this is usually done after fierce electoral rivalry among the parties when they have already aired each other’s dirty linen. Problems can show up at any phase of the democratic process in, for instance, such cases as the need to negotiate a coalition; to maintain an effective, functional and powerful government; and to maintain a government that could break down at any time (Hiroi, 2009: 488–489). In the case of the presence of ideological polarization and fragmentation in the party system, the problems tend to deteriorate further. The problem is then attempted to be solved in many parliamentary democracies by the introduction of an electoral threshold that leaves the parties below it out of parliament, or permission for minority governments that violate the principle of rule by the majority. x As a liberal political institution, democracy, by making sovereignty belong to the people in its entirety, by making them the major source of political action, leads to the neglect of the religious, moral and social codes of a society that play a significant role in its continuity.

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It is through such codes that people acquire certain qualities, like responsibility, integrity, respect, moderation, generosity, communitarianism, etc. That is, a set of values that completes the normative aspects of stable political systems, which is seminal, for instance, in combating crimes and radicalism in the streets, the breakdown of families, the mistreatment of elderly people, corruption in public offices and so.8 Democracy tends to aggrandize “the man” to such an extent that it becomes very difficult to hold stable the sociopolitical base that he stands for. A stable political system must certainly rely on the qualities of the people much as their quantity (Minogue, 2010: 1–15).

Conclusion To sum up, democracy has certain undeniable merits, like its elevation of the people to rulers from the level of subjects; or making sovereignty belong to the people only; its provision of an effective mechanism of political accountability via periodic elections; its facilitation of change by peaceful means not needing recourse to revolutions and other aggressive actions; and its contribution to the political education and awareness of the people. But democracy also suffers from some very serious limitations and weaknesses as well, as discussed in this chapter, with regard to massive human rights violations of a number of leading contemporary democratic states; the presence of various undemocratic monarchical and aristocratic institutions in many of the leading democracies; the insufficiency of democracy to protect ethnic, religious, ideological minorities from elected rulers; the suffering of a great many democracies from rampant corruption; the delegation of various policy areas that must be managed with knowledge and expertise under popular control; the change of state policies and programs together with the change of the government on occasions; the instability and political problems related to the difficulties of establishing and maintaining viable coalition governments; and, finally, the attachment of excessive importance to the individual in democracies at the expense of various religious, moral and social norms that serve critical functions for the order and stability of the society.

8

Sporadic occurrences of school and street shootings in the US are examples in point here.

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Bibliography Almond, G. A. & Sidney Verba. (1989). The civic culture: Political attitudes and democracy in five nations. 3rd Edition. California, London, New Delhi: Sage Publications. Arneson, R. J. (2009). The supposed right to a democratic say. In Thomas Christiano and John Christman (eds.), Contemporary debates in political philosophy. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Pp. 197–212. Brennan, J. (ed.) (2016). Against democracy. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Bulmer, E. (2017). Constitutional monarchs in parliamentary democracies. Strömsborg: International IDEA. Conway, M., Domico S. B. & Domico A. (1996). Democratic socialization in the schools. In Russell F Farnen and et. al. (eds.) Democratic socialization and conflicting loyalties in East and West: Cross-national comparative perspectives. London: St Martins Press Inc. Goody, J. (2005). Democracy, values and modes of representation. Diogenes 52(2): 7–18. Hiroi, T. (2009). Perils of parliamentarism? Political systems and the stability of democracy revisited. Democratization 16(3): 485–507. Iraq Body Count Project https://www.iraqbodycount.org/ Lijphart, A. (1977). Democracy in plural societies: A comparative exploration. New Haven: Yale University Press. Low, D. A. (1988). Introduction: Buckingham Palace and the Westminster Model. In D. A. Low (ed.), Constitutional heads and political crisis: Commonwealth episodes, 1945–85. London: The Macmillan Press Ltd. pp. 1–25. Hagopian A., Flaxman A. D., Takaro T. K., Shatari S. E., Rajaratnam J., Becker S., Levin-Rector A., Galway L., Al-Yasseri B. J. H. (2013). Mortality in Iraq associated with the 2003–2011 war and occupation: Findings from a national cluster sample survey by the University Collaborative Iraq Mortality Study, PLOS Medicine 10(10): 1–15. Kinsella, D. & David, L. R. (2008). Democracy and conflict resolution. In Jacob Bercovitch, Victor Kremenyuk, and I. William Zartman (eds.) Handbook on Conflict Resolution. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Minogue, K. (2010). Servile mind: How democracy erodes the moral life. New York: Encounter Books. Pani, M. (2011). Hold your nose and vote: Corruption and public decisions in a representative democracy. Public Choice 148: 163–196.

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Rose-Ackerman, S. (1999). Corruption and government: Causes, consequences and reform. Cambridge, Mass: Cambridge University Press. Wojtasik, W. (2013). Functions of elections in democratic systems. Political Preferences 4: 25–38.



THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT AND RACE JACK M. BLOOM ADJUNCT PROFESSOR, MINORITY STUDIES AND HISTORY INDIANA UNIVERSITY NORTHWEST

It is clear that the right is ascendant in the United States, and that it has been for some time now. This trend has an economic, class dimension; especially in its modern incarnation in the recent Trump Administration, it has been ideological. It has also had a racial dimension and, as a result, its incarnation in the Republican Party has made that party one that is almost exclusively occupied by whites. One of the remarkable features of the growing power of the conservative movement has been how important the religious right has been in that development. After the 1925 Scopes trial, the religious right retreated from politics for about a half century.1 Often, it is thought that strictly religious issues brought them back: the court rulings that did not permit organized prayers in school or other public venues, the vast expansion of abortion rights that Roe v Wade unleashed, the trend toward recognizing gay rights, including the right to marriage, an issue which the Bush Administration had used to mobilize its base to come out to support him in elections. While it is widely recognized that a focus on “race” was an important element in moving the white South into the Republican Party, it is less well understood that race was also the issue that brought the religious right into the political arena. It is useful to remember that the religious right is strongest in the South. So, while evangelicals have been moved by a variety of issues that they felt touched upon their religious beliefs, many of them had also been part of the white resistance to the civil rights movement. Other issues with which they were concerned included abortion, prayer in schools, gay marriage and the treatment of gays generally, and the teaching of evolution in the public schools—all of which conflict with what they believe the Bible teaches.

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These concerns were especially felt and articulated by fundamentalists and evangelicals—who often, but not always, agreed with one another. These churches were most strongly based in the South, so that was another reason for the growing significance of that region as the conservative movement has grown in importance. It turns out that the evangelical churches had a significant relationship with the movement that resisted desegregation, and that the massive resistance movement failed. Organized refusal to accept desegregation characterized the South’s response to the Brown vs. Board of Education and other court rulings that challenged segregation laws and the suppression of black voting rights. But probably no effort to change the racist culture of the white South drew as much sustained opposition as the demand to desegregate the schools. It was the outcome of the multiple efforts whereby white southerners sought to avoid mixing black and white children, or even possibly subjecting white children to being taught by black teachers. Such teachers would, by virtue of being teachers, command a position of authority, which opponents of desegregation could not accept. Moreover, they feared that proximity of young blacks and whites would create friendships and relationships that would make the racial order they had constructed over the centuries, and since the end of slavery, impossible to retain or restore. David Kuo, who served as the second-in-command of President George W. Bush’s Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, said that although he felt that the issue of abortion was the most important motivation for right-wing Christians to become involved in politics,2 five years after Roe, an attempt by the Internal Revenue Service to consider eliminating the tax-exempt status of private Christian schools also infuriated Christians. Roe had convinced many Christians that America was morally lax, and the IRS convinced them there was a Big Brother out to get them.

Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, so five years later, in 1978, the president at that time was Jimmy Carter, an evangelical himself. Many in the Christian right saw the threat of losing the tax exemption that was available to private Christian schools as even more important in moving the group into politics than Kuo had. Paul Weyrich, a founder of the conservative Heritage and Free Congress Foundations, and of the American Legislative Exchange Council, which coordinates right-wing legislation in the states, felt that the

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Kuo, 2006: 26.

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IRS policy “shattered the Christian community’s notion that Christians could isolate themselves inside their own institutions and teach what they pleased.”3 Richard Viguerie, a long-time conservative activist who was an innovator in direct mail donations long before the internet became the way to solicit money, said that the new IRS policy “kicked the sleeping dog. It galvanized the religious right. It was the spark that ignited the religious right’s involvement in politics.”4 Why did the IRS seek to remove the tax-exempt status of Christian schools? What, if anything, did this policy have to do with racial issues? Private, segregated schools emerged out of the demonstrated inability of the massive resistance movement to prevent desegregation of the public schools. In some places, school districts responded to the court insistence on desegregation by closing the public schools while organizing private schools for white students. In most cases, such a drastic step was soon reversed, as families came to realize that the future of white children was being threatened, as well as that for blacks.5 But, in Prince Edward County, in Virginia, the public schools remained closed for five years, depriving blacks of their chance at education, while most white children attended private schools. Eventually, the courts overruled such moves and insisted that the schools be kept open and be supported by public funds.6 With that alternative cut off, districts reopened the public schools and proceeded with token integration, in which only small numbers of black children were admitted to the formerly all-white schools, while the overwhelming majority remained in all-black schools. The so-called “freedom of choice” plans, in which someone would be automatically assigned to the school they otherwise would have attended under the rule of segregation, unless they specifically requested a different assignment, meant that only blacks would be assigned to white schools, not the other way around, and it put the burden on the student and his/her family, as such an act could provoke retaliation. As a result, almost all blacks remained in separate schools. For example, Matthew and Mae Bertha Carter, who had enrolled seven children in the white school in Drew, Mississippi, soon found themselves evicted from their home, ousted from their jobs on the plantation where they had lived,

 3

Crespino, 2007: 55. 4 Edsall and Edsall, 1991: 132; cited in Crespino, 2007: 55. 5 Bloom, 1987, Chapter Four 6 “Segregated Academies and State Action,” 1973: 1437–1438.



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and unable to find replacements for home or jobs.7 (In rural areas and small towns of the South, housing was not segregated, unlike in the cities, and, therefore, neighborhood schools could not serve to create the kind of de facto segregation that prevails in the nation’s cities.) But by the late sixties, the courts were looking askance at these measures to retain segregation in the public school system. The policy’s defenders were increasingly beset as their options narrowed again and again. In 1968, the Court ruled that in New Kent County, in Mississippi, where blacks had filed suit against the system, the so-called freedom of choice plan had not diminished segregation. Justice William Brennan, writing for the court, said that: Although a geographical formula is not universally appropriate, it is evident that, here, the Board, by separately busing Negro children across the entire county to the ‘Negro’ school, and the white children to the ‘white’ school, is deliberately maintaining a segregated system which would vanish with nonracial geographic zoning. So, the court ruled: The Board must be required to formulate a new plan and, in light of other courses which appear open to the Board, such as zoning, fashion steps which promise realistically to convert promptly to a system without a ‘white’ school and a ‘Negro’ school, but just schools.8 In 1969, the Supreme Court ruled further in a case involving Holmes County in Mississippi: “that each of the school districts here involved may no longer operate a dual school system based on race or color,” and directed that they begin immediately “to operate as unitary school systems within which no person is to be effectively excluded from any school because of race or color.”9 This ruling was followed in 1970 by a federal district court finding that Mississippi’s Sunflower County was illegally operating a segregated school system and that when the required desegregation took place, as journalist Kay Mills put it:

 7

Mills, 1993: 240. 8 https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/391/430 — accessed 8/27/2015; Sokol, 2006: 170. 9 http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3021&context=ndlr – accessed 8/27/2015.



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If there were to be any reduction in the number of principals, teachers, or teacher aides, then nondiscriminatory standards had to be used. Any vacancies had to be filled by people of the same race as the person being replaced. There was thus no gain, from any anti-integration perspective, in firing black teachers or principals.

That order was affirmed by the Fifth Circuit Appeals Court.10 This case was, in some ways, more threatening than its predecessors, since it meant that some white children would be educated by black instructors. That situation raised the question of what these children would be taught, as well as the lesson they would inevitably absorb: that blacks were legitimate authority figures. The significance of all these decisions was that the tactics that had been employed since Brown to delay desegregation were unsustainable. This new situation undermined all efforts to maintain a racially segregated public school system. White children would be going to school with blacks—in some cases, with many more blacks than whites. Those who were unwilling to accept this choice now began to pull their children out of the public schools in large numbers to create a system of private schools, which came to be known by their opponents as “Segregation Academies.” The greater the black population of the school district, the more likely this was to occur,11 so it had its largest impact in the black belt, where blacks tended to be the most concentrated, sometimes comprising a majority of the population, or of the school-age population. While these private schools had been growing since the mid-sixties, after the new court decisions, they soared in enrollment. Thus, for example, the academy in Indianola, Mississippi, which was founded in 1965, doubled in size in 1969, after the court ruling that invalidated the dual school systems in that state. After the Christmas break, no white child showed up to the Gentry (public) High School in January. Because the original segregation academy wasn’t large enough to accommodate all the new students, satellite campuses were established in area churches (where they would occasionally have to share space with funerals). In the second decade of the twenty-first century, almost no white students attended Gentry High School in Indianola, though there were some

 10

Mills, 1993: 242–245. 11 “Segregated Academies and State Action,” 1973: 1451, incl fn. 81.



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in the elementary schools. The public high school lacked air-conditioning, and the heat did not always work.12 In Greensboro, North Carolina, private schools were established for wealthier families; others enrolled their children in the county schools rather than those of the city. In at least one church school, black children were excluded.13 In the state of Mississippi, numbers in the segregation academies increased from 2,290 in the 1963–4 school year to 9,064 in the 1968–9 academic year—and then soared to 30,939 in the 1969–70 school year.14 In the South as a whole, the numbers in these schools expanded from about 25,000 in 1966, less than five percent of the approximately 535,000 they attained in 1972.15 There is little question about the intent of these schools. Though they were often held in churches, especially in rural areas, and they were often called “Christian” schools, a report from the liberal Southern Regional Council was unequivocal about their real purpose: “These days Christian schools and segregation academies are almost synonymous.”16 Another liberal group, the Lamar Society, produced a study in 1975 that confirmed that judgment: “The academies were founded to perpetuate separatism. They stand as havens from integration and association with other cultures and colors.”17 By 1976, there were more Christian schools than public schools operating in the South.18 The churches themselves vehemently denied that segregation was their purpose. These schools were “private” in name, but they received significant amounts of public support. For example, Mississippi began providing grants to students who wished to attend these academies to help with their tuition in 1964, thereby joining Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana and the Carolinas, all of which already offered such grants. In some places in Mississippi, public school buses were donated to the local private school,

 12

Carr, 2013: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/12/in-southerntowns-segregation-academies-are-still-going-strong/266207/ — accessed 8/ 9/ 2013. 13 Lavelle, 2015: 130. 14 Sokol, 2006: 171; Champaigne, 1973: 59. 15 “Segregated Academies and State Action,” 1973: 1441. 16 Crespino, 2007: 248. 17 Crespino, 2007: 248–249. 18 Seymour, 2009: http://www.leninology.co.uk/2009/07/racial-politics-of-christian-right.html — accessed 7/11/ 2013.



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and school buildings were sold at bargain basement prices to the operators of the private schools.19 In Alabama, one county sold a public school building to a private school for $12,000, vastly less than it cost to build, or what it was worth. In Georgia, a $125,000 building went for $6,500, and a $24,000 school for $100. In South Carolina, a $60,000 school building was leased for $700 a month. It was similar in other states.20 State support of these schools went further still. Louisiana and Mississippi provided them with free textbooks—Mississippi allowed all public school children to take their textbooks with them when they transferred to a private school—and Louisiana supplied bus transportation, health services and free lunches to students in these private schools. When the town of Smallville, Louisiana was faced with court-ordered desegregation in the fall of 1970, whites moved en masse to the local segregation academy. The public schools there donated all the desks for the school (they were supposedly thrown out) and provided books for the library, while the state and the sheriff, respectively, provided textbooks and security for the school. The Louisiana state government also provided payment for teachers who had left the public schools to teach in the academies. The teachers who did this were all eligible for retirement pensions, which served as supplements to their $20 a day pay at the new school.21 In Mississippi, school districts continued to pay the salaries of white teachers in the segregation academies, with the approval of the state attorney general, while in Georgia, Louisiana and Virginia, teachers in these private schools were allowed to participate in state teacher retirement programs.22 There were reports that students and teachers alike had taken textbooks, teaching materials, athletic equipment and other goods as they left the public schools for the private academies.23 The schools also frequently received state and federal tax exemptions, including from income, property and corporate taxes, as well as some exemptions from sales taxes.24 Ultimately, the courts ruled that most of these forms of aid were impermissible.25

 19

Crespino, 2007: 240–243 20 “Segregated Academies and State Action,” 1973: 1446–1447, fn 63. 21 Champaigne, 1973: 62. 22 “Segregated Academies and State Action,” 1973: 1450, fn. 79; Crespino, 1973: 245. 23 Crespino, 2007: 243. 24 “Segregated Academies and State Action,” 1973: 1446, fn 61. 25 “Segregated Academies and State Action,” 1973: 1440.



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As a consequence of all these favors, many white children could attend even though their families would otherwise have been unable to afford the tuition. In fact, as more and more whites had their children switch to the segregation academies, the families of those who did not became more reluctant to keep their children in schools that were becoming all-black, or nearly so. As white teachers left, white parents were also less willing to have their children taught by black teachers.26 The schools soon found their budgets reduced. In part, that was because of state funding formulas that provided money to schools on a per capita basis. But also, in these circumstances, where the students were black while those in charge of funds were white, legislatures and school boards provided fewer discretionary funds, or even cut the tax rate, while tax referenda were often voted down.27 Thus, for example, in Mississippi during 1970, legislators cut $12 million out of the public school budget and justified their action on the grounds that 29,000 students had left the public schools that year,28 while at the same time the hidden subsidies for pupils in white schools continued. One of the public subsidies that these segregation academies continued to receive was from the federal government, which allowed these schools to continue their taxexempt status. Thus, the schools still paid no taxes, and donors to the schools were allowed to deduct from their income the value of the donations they made to the schools. (Interestingly, Philadelphia, Mississippi—where the infamous murders of the three civil rights activists took place just as Freedom Summer was getting started in 1964—was one town that did not establish a segregation academy. There had been opposition to the Klan-defined response to that summer’s activities in Philadelphia.29 In the twenty-first century, Philadelphia is better off than the neighboring town of Louisville, which is “culturally and economically similar”,30 and sits some 30 miles away, and which did create an academy to keep its schools segregated.) Faced with these demands, black parents in Mississippi sought to cut off government aid and to file a class action lawsuit in May of 1969 “to prohibit Federal tax exemptions to private schools in Mississippi that refused

 26

“Segregated Academies and State Action,” 1973: 1453. 27 “Segregated Academies and State Action,” 1973: 1452–1453, incl fn 87 and 1445, incl fn 60.; Crespino, 2007: 241. 28 Crespino, 2007: 241. 29 Mars, 1977. 30 http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/01/how-white-flight-ruinedthe-mississippi-delta/384227/ — accessed 8/9/2015.



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admission to black students based on their race or color.”31 In 1970 (when President Nixon had telegraphed his intention to slow down or reverse the process of desegregation), a Federal District Court issued an injunction granting their request. While the suit applied only to Mississippi, the court made it clear that the principle applied to all schools that faced the same circumstances. The IRS then announced that it would no longer grant such exemptions, nor treat gifts to such schools as charitable deductions.32 In making the announcement, then-IRS Commissioner, Randolph Thrower, who served under President Nixon, distinguished between schools and churches. He promised that the IRS would not revoke the tax exemptions of churches. 33 The school administrators were capable of reading the roadmap that they felt the IRS had laid out for them. As a result, many of these schools then affiliated with churches—which in rural areas and small towns had some of the only buildings outside of the schools that could accommodate enough students to enable them to function as schools. Although these church-based schools had no more legal right to discriminate than any other schools, public or private, and still receive tax exemptions, the distinction remained and did provide some protection. Despite its policy declaration, the IRS did not crack down on all the segregation academies. The story did not end at this point. In 1975 (during the Ford presidency), the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights published a study that criticized the IRS for allowing some of these racially discriminatory schools to retain their tax exemptions. The IRS responded by making the exemptions harder to get. Nonetheless, the plaintiffs in the 1970 case went back to court, arguing that the IRS wasn’t cracking down hard enough in Mississippi; moreover, another suit was filed to apply the stricter Mississippi criteria to the rest of the South. In 1978, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights published its research showing that, as historian Joseph Crespino put it: “at least seven private academies in Mississippi that had been cited by the federal court as having a discriminatory admissions policy were still tax-exempt.” The IRS then issued new guidelines that made it more difficult for these schools to gain the tax exemption.34

 31

U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1982: 5. 32 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1982: 6. 33 Crespino, 2007: 250. 34 This difficult to follow story is clearly explained in Crespino, 2007: 2 52–253.



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This last action on the part of the IRS took place in the late seventies, during the Carter Administration. In response, the opposition exploded, bringing about the reaction noted by Kuo, Weyrich and Viguerie at the opening of this chapter: more than a half million letters of protest went to Congress, and to the IRS.35 They complained that the government was interfering with their religious practices and denied that they were engaged in racial discrimination. Now, as the 1980 elections approached, the Republican Party took up the case of these schools against what it called the “unconstitutional regulatory vendetta launched by Mr. Carter’s IRS commissioner against independent schools.”36 Reagan, first as candidate and later as president, upheld the party’s view on the matter. As a candidate, he spoke at Bob Jones University, which had lost its tax exemption because of its policies of racial discrimination and had sued the IRS, arguing that it was being discriminated against because of its racial beliefs. Reagan contended that the IRS was demanding racial quotas, which he denounced: “You do not alter the evil character of racial quotas simply by changing the color of the beneficiary.”37 As president, Reagan ordered the IRS to restore tax exemptions to segregated private schools. But the Supreme Court overturned this practice, holding that the law required the withdrawal of the exemptions: “The Government’s fundamental, overriding interest in eradicating racial discrimination in education substantially outweighs whatever burden denial of tax benefits places on petitioners’ exercise of their religious beliefs.”38 Regardless of the court’s ruling, the president had made it plain to his white supporters where he stood. His efforts here fit very well into the program that Republicans had offered to the nation since the Goldwater campaign. It was clear that the Republican Party had remade itself into a party where whites who opposed racial mixing could feel comfortable. This stance affected the party’s position on other issues. For example, just as the white South had apparently lost confidence in the public school system, the Republican Party had become skeptical of that system as well, and has increasingly directed funds toward privately organized “charter schools,”

 35

Crespino, 2007: 254. 36 http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25844 – accessed 8/13/2013. 37 Crespino, 2007: 256. 38 http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0461_0574_ZS.html – accessed 8/14/2013.



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which are allowed to choose which pupils they will allow to enroll in their schools. President Trump’s Secretary of Education, Betsy deVos, made it plain that she preferred private schools that are often run for profit. The president himself campaigned on applying some $20 billion to expand school choice, meaning other than for public schools.39 So, bringing fundamentalists and evangelicals into the political arena and to the Republican Party had an important racial dimension to it. It is inescapably evident that colluding with proponents of white supremacy has been a part of the Republican effort to win control of the government. This process was clearly evident long before today’s form of ultra-conservatism took over the GOP. In 1964, one of the Republicans elected to the House of Representatives from Mississippi in the Goldwater sweep of the Deep South, “celebrated his victory for the party of Abraham Lincoln by making his first public appearance after the election before the Americans for the Preservation of the White Race.”40

 39

Mead, 40 “The Voting Record of the Challenged Congressman from Mississippi” by the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party Washington office, cited in Mills, 1993: 155



THE GOOD THING ABOUT SECTARIANISM? AN INTERSECTIONAL APPROACH TO SOCIAL CLASS AND SECTARIAN IDENTITY IN NORTHERN IRELAND GORDON RAMSEY ANTHROPOLOGY AND ETHNOMUSICOLOGY QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY, BELFAST

Introduction “Sectarianism” is a term that dominates political discourse in Northern Ireland. Rival political factions often accuse each other of “sectarianism” whilst denying that they are themselves, “sectarian” (e.g. Belfast Telegraph 2018; Campbell 2018). The only thing on which all factions, from the militantly Irish Republican Sinn Féin Party, overwhelmingly supported by Catholics, to the militantly British Unionist and exclusively Protestant fraternity, the Orange Order, seem to agree is that sectarianism is a bad thing. Yet, virtually all political and social life in Northern Ireland is dominated by the sectarian divide between Protestants and Catholics, or to use the prevailing contemporary terminology, between the Protestant/ Unionist/Loyalist (PUL) community and the Catholic/Nationalist/ Republican (CNR) community. The fact that sectarian identities can no longer be credibly defined purely by religion, but require political projects to be considered, raises questions about what sectarianism really is, whilst the fact that these commonly used terms distinguish between groups which share similar political projects, but whose methods and reasons for pursuing them differ as a result of their class origins (Nationalist/Republican on one hand and Unionist/Loyalist on the other) raises the question: what does class have to do with it?1 The deeper question, however, is that if, as all sides 1

In Northern Ireland, the terms “unionist” and “nationalist” are generally associated with the middle-class, legitimate political parties and acceptable cultural expression.

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agree, there is nothing good about sectarianism, why does it continue to play such a central role in structuring political, social and cultural life in Northern Ireland, particularly amongst the working classes? This paper first develops a practical definition of sectarianism, before going on to consider the literature on social class and sectarianism in Ireland and particularly Ulster, which is overwhelmingly derived from Marxist perspectives. The paper explores why Marxist scholars have struggled to account for the dynamics of the Northern Ireland conflict and, in particular, have struggled to explain why sectarian loyalties have been most enthusiastically, stridently and militantly embraced by the working classes who, according to Marxist theory, are most disadvantaged by them. Drawing on historical and ethnographic evidence, particularly in regard to working-class loyalism, the paper goes on to develop an intersectional approach to social class and sectarian identity, derived from the work of feminist scholars such as Kimberlé Crenshaw and Leslie McCall as a more effective way of understanding the dynamics of sectarianism in Northern Irish society which is divided by both religious/political ideology and by social class. The paper concludes that, rather than working-class sectarianism being a product of “false consciousness”, opposed to class politics as posited by “orthodox Marxists” (Whyte 1990), the embracing of sectarian identities by working-class people in Northern Ireland is itself a form of class politics, derived from a realistic understanding of their position in capitalist society and the limited options open to them to maintain or improve that position. Finally, the paper suggests that such insights may be relevant outside Northern Ireland in understanding phenomena such as racism, Islamism or Islamophobia in other contexts.

Understanding Sectarianism Given the prevalence of the term “sectarianism” in political discourse in and around Northern Ireland, definitions of the phenomenon are surprisingly hard to find. Attempts to define “sectarianism” in the Northern Irish context have come from two main sources: firstly, Christian churches wrestling with their responsibilities in a conflict perceived as religious (Irish Inter-Church Meeting 1993; Liechty & Clegg 2001) and secondly, scholars concerned with the relationship between sectarianism and racism (Brewer 1992; The terms “loyalist” and “republican” are generally associated with the workingclass, violent paramilitary organisations and unacceptable or “sectarian” forms of cultural expression. There is some flexibility in the use of these terms which are not precise mirror-images of each other but each has specific connotations.

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McVeigh 1998,2014; Connolly 2002; Geoghegan 2010; Gilligan 2017). As a result, four central questions emerge in the literature from these respective approaches. From the Christian approach: 1. Is sectarianism necessarily associated with religion? 2. Is sectarianism distinguishable from religious difference? 3. Should the term “sectarianism” necessarily be negatively valued? From the academic study of racism: 4. Is sectarianism racism? I will examine each approach in turn.

The Christian Approach For those writers coming from a Christian background, it is precisely the association of sectarianism with religion that has prompted their engagement with the topic, so their definitions tend to centralize the role of religion. The Irish Inter-Church Meeting’s Report of the Working Party on Sectarianism (1993:8) presented the following working definition of sectarianism: Sectarianism is a complex of attitudes, beliefs, behaviors and structures in which religion is a significant component, and which (i) directly or indirectly infringes the rights of individuals or groups and/or (ii) influences or causes situations of destructive conflict.

The definition answers Question 1 in the affirmative: religion is a significant component of sectarianism. This conclusion is unsurprising, since Christians engaging with this topic from an activist standpoint must accept that this is true or else accept that there is little role for them in reducing sectarianism. The report answers Question 2 in the affirmative, noting that the “emphasis on consequences helps to separate religious difference from sectarianism” (1993:8). This definition also answers Question 3: since sectarianism is defined by its negative consequences, it is, necessarily, negative. Liechty & Clegg’s (2001) Moving Beyond Sectarianism, acknowledges that most scholars who have published on the conflict in Northern Ireland see religion as playing a minimal or, at best, supportive role in a conflict

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premised primarily on other issues, and quote McGarry & O’Leary’s (1995:213) claim that “Explanations which emphasize the primacy of religion need to be exposed to strong light. When that happens, they evaporate, leaving little residue…” (quoted in Liechty & Clegg 2001:30). Nevertheless, Liechty & Clegg (2001:38) conclude that “[s]ectarianism always involves religion”; and that “Religion is the factor that makes an attitude, an action, a belief, or a structure specifically sectarian”. They go on to explain that: The role of religion may be direct and immediate or diffuse and distant but it must be present … Sectarian violence, for example, might be committed by people of little or no religious conviction against people of little or no religious conviction. But it would still be called sectarian violence if perpetrators and victims both came from communities demarcated or defined in part by religion, i.e. Catholic and Protestant communities (Liechty & Clegg 2001:39).

Liechty & Clegg (2001:25) make an interesting observation which challenges their own definition, however. They identify the process of sectarianism as: encounter - judge - condemn - reject - demonize - separation/ antagonism. However, in promoting their approach of “moving beyond sectarianism” over “anti-sectarianism”, they note that anti-sectarianism can produce precisely the same dynamics as sectarianism: encounter - judge - condemn - reject - demonize - separation/ antagonism. Liechty and Clegg (2001:25) describe this as “liberal sectarianism”. If the dynamics of liberal sectarianism can be indistinguishable from those of religious sectarianism, it suggests that religion is not an essential element of sectarianism. I shall return to this point when I develop my own definition below. Regarding Question 2, Liechty and Clegg (2001), like the Inter-Church meeting, suggest that sectarianism can be distinguished from religious difference by its negative consequences. Noting that they do not see all religious division as a problem (2001:38), they describe sectarianism as “a distortion of something good” (2001:26). It follows, therefore, that their answer to Question 3 also agrees with the Inter-Church Meeting:

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“Sectarianism …. always refers to something bad, a problem” (Liechty & Clegg 2001:38). Liechty and Clegg (2001:38) suggest that the negative valuation of “sectarianism” reflects common usage in Northern Ireland and assert that treating “sectarianism” as “a neutral term, for example, by using “sectarian division” to refer to religious division, is “needlessly paradoxical”. From the Christian engagement with the issue of sectarianism, then, a clear set of positions emerges: sectarianism is inextricably associated with religion, yet it is not identical to religious difference, rather, it is a negatively valued expression of difference associated with religion.

The “Racism Studies” Approach The body of work approaching sectarianism in Northern Ireland through comparison with racism in Northern Ireland includes publications by John Brewer (1992); Robbie McVeigh (1998,2014); Paul Connolly (2002); Peter Geoghegan (2010) and Chris Gilligan (2017). These authors do not question whether sectarianism is “a bad thing”: they all assume that it is. They differ, however, on the importance of religion in sectarianism. For Brewer (1992:353), “religion is the marker of difference”. Geoghegan (2010:21) asserts that “Sectarianism denotes the complex interaction between religion and politics” whilst McVeigh (2014:3) notes that: other labels—like “Unionist” and “Loyalist” or “Nationalist” and “Republican”—signify the political and ethnic elements which also constitute identities that appear formally theological. This already suggests that we are dealing with ethnicity—which recognizes just such an amalgam of different elements—rather than faith.

McVeigh describes a reliance on religion as an explanation of conflict in Northern Ireland as “the theological fallacy” (1998:18). McVeigh’s introduction of the term “ethnicity” leads to the central question addressed by these scholars: “is sectarianism racism?” Most agree that it is not, although Gilligan (2017) offers a dissenting view. Brewer (1992:353) regards racism as similar to sectarianism in that both produce “inequality in a structured manner”, but sees them as different in that racism discriminates based on “perceptual cues” related to genetically inherited physical characteristics, whereas sectarianism discriminates on the basis of religion understood through stereotypes regarding behavior, such as Protestants attending state schools or Catholics supporting Glasgow Celtic Football

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Club. A crucial point made by Brewer (1992:28) is that religious affiliation or behavior can be changed, whereas physical characteristics cannot. Geoghegan (2010:21) similarly observes that sectarianism and racism are not the same thing, despite their continual conflation. Sectarianism denotes the complex interaction between religion and politics through which ideas about religious difference are used to infer political identities. Racism, on the other hand, refers to the assumption that people can be divided according to physical and biological criteria. McVeigh (1998), having noted a range of similarities between sectarianism and racism, explores the relationship between the two through an analysis of discourses of anti-Catholicism and anti-Irish racism in the UK, concluding that although they overlap, they are far from identical. McVeigh goes on to note that nobody has suggested that Catholics in Northern Ireland cannot be sectarian, and that attempting to analyze Catholic sectarianism in racial terms leads into all kinds of logical cul-de-sacs. The dissenting voice from the predominant view that racism and sectarianism are similar, potentially related, but nevertheless different, is Gilligan (2017). Drawing on the work of Steve Garner (2010) Gilligan argues that sectarianism is one of a variety of “racisms”. Gilligan asserts that in both everyday speech and official discourse in the UK and the UN, “ethnicity” is frequently conflated with “race” and that McVeigh’s contention that the Northern Ireland conflict is an ethnic conflict is now widely accepted. Since ethnic discrimination in other contexts is widely described as “racism”, sectarian discrimination in Northern Ireland should also be seen as a form of racism, although historically distinct from other “racisms”. Gilligan’s (2017) reading of both McVeigh (1998) and Garner (2010) is selective. Gilligan simply ignores McVeigh’s point regarding Catholic sectarianism. All the examples of sectarian behavior given in his book are perpetrated by Protestants against Catholics: the multitude of documented instances of Catholic sectarianism directed at Protestants are left unmentioned. More fundamentally, whilst Garner (2010) argues that there are indeed a range of historically unique “racisms”, he does not see all forms of discrimination as racism. He provides a minimal definition by which “racisms” may be identified. For Garner (2010:11), “racism” must include all of the following three elements:

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1. A historical power relationship in which, over time, groups are racialized (that is, treated as if specific characteristics were natural and innate to each member of the group). 2. A set of ideas (ideology) in which the human race is divisible into distinct “races”, each with specific natural characteristics. 3. Forms of discrimination flowing from this (practices) ranging from denial of access to resources through to mass murder. It is understandable that Gilligan does not quote this definition, since it effectively excludes sectarianism in Northern Ireland as a form of racism. To take each of the criteria in turn, there has certainly been a historical power relationship between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, although, particularly in recent decades, that relationship has been fluid and contested. Whether that relationship is constituted through “racialization” is debatable. The idea that sectarianism is racism falls comprehensively at Garner’s second hurdle, however. Sectarianism in Northern Ireland is emphatically not premised on an ideology of “race”. On the contrary, most in Northern Ireland accept that they are “the one blood” (Leyton 1974:194); that Catholics and Protestants constitute two sides of the same house (Larsen 1982:138) 2 ; and that the differences which divide them are not “natural and innate”. Leyton (1974:194) notes that “in contrast to many divided societies which deny the humanity of opposing groups, the inhabitants of (unionist) Kildarragh and (nationalist) Blackrock “regard each other as equally and fully human, only misguided and perverted by heretical doctrines and evil institutions”, whilst Harris (1972:xii) notes that whilst poorer Protestants in Ballybeg village were the most militantly sectarian, they did not regard Catholics “as in any way socially inferior to themselves”. It is precisely because these differences are not innate but are, at some level, a matter of choice that the figure of the turncoat or traitor is such a powerful folk demon in the respective mythologies of loyalism and republicanism: the “Lundy” who abandons his comrades in their darkest hour, or the “souper” who turns his back on his most deeply-held beliefs for material gain, continue to be powerful discursive tropes in contemporary

2

In Northern Ireland, it is common for Protestants and Catholics to refer to the other group as “the other side of the house”.

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Northern Ireland.3 So whilst Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland have indeed subjected each other to discrimination ranging from deprivation of resources to mass murder, this discrimination cannot, by Garner’s criteria, be described as racism. The question of the innateness of divisions, I suggest, is crucial in understanding the difference between racism and sectarianism. If sectarianism is not racism, however, but is also not simply religious discrimination, as convincingly argued by both McVeigh (2014) and Gilligan (2017), then what is it?

Sectarianism: A Practical Definition A look back over Irish politics since the beginning of the twentieth century reveals a steady process of secularization of political identity. In 1932, Éamon de Valera, campaigning for election as Irish Prime Minister, declared that “the majority of the people of Ireland are Catholic and … it is right and natural that the principles to be applied by us will be principles consistent with Catholicity”, and following his electoral victory, his deputy, Sean O’Kelly, declared that “the Free State Government was inspired in its every administrative action by Catholic principles and doctrine”. In response, James Craig, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, declared that “we are a Protestant parliament and a Protestant state”. Such openly religious identifications are rarely heard today. In 2018, the Pope was welcomed to the Republic of Ireland by Leo Varadkar, an openly homosexual Taoiseach, who had strongly and successfully advocated for same-sex marriage in defiance of Catholic doctrine and of lobbying by the Catholic Church. The largest nationalist party in Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin, has also moved sharply away from Catholic teachings on same-sex

3 Robert Lundy, a Scottish professional soldier served as Governor of Londonderry during the early stages of the Siege of 1688. He fled the city to escape public anger after it became known that he intended to surrender to the Catholic army of King James II. His effigy is burned every December by loyalists in the city, whilst his name is a label attached to perceived traitors. The Rev. Ian Paisley, at different times, referred to Northern Ireland Prime Minister, Terence O’Neill, British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher and Northern Irish First Minister, David Trimble as “Lundys”. After entering government with Republicans in 2007, Paisley was himself branded a Lundy by some former supporters. The term “souper” derives from the period of the Great Famine, during which Protestant Bible Societies offered food in conjunction with religious instruction. Catholics who converted to Protestantism were said to have “taken the soup”. In recent years, Irish rock-stars Bob Geldof and Bono, amongst others, have been accused of souperism after accepting honors from the British crown.

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marriage and the even more controversial issue of abortion in recent years. In general, Sinn Féin avoids religious discourses altogether. Within Unionism, as late as the 1970s and beyond, religion and politics remained intertwined in the discourses of the Rev. Ian Paisley, leader of both the Free Presbyterian Church and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), but the current leader of the DUP, Arlene Foster, who is not a Free Presbyterian but an Episcopalian, focuses on Unionism rather than Protestantism in her political discourses. Religious conservatives, within both Protestantism and Catholicism, have increasingly found themselves aligned against secularism over issues, such as gay marriage and abortion; some within the DUP have even suggested that the party could provide a political home for conservative Catholics. At a grassroots level, a prominent mural on Belfast’s staunchly loyalist Newtownards Road declares unequivocally, “The Ulster Conflict is About Nationality”, and this is one issue on which most of their nationalist political opponents would agree. During my own research within loyalist marching bands, a large, predominantly workingclass section of the population strongly committed to a “PUL” identity, I have found that church attendance and religious commitment are rare, and that a significant number of loyalist band members, including those in leadership roles, are avowed atheists or militant secularists. In conversation, band members frequently distinguished in their political discourses between “decent Catholics” or “ordinary nationalists”, on the one hand, and “republicans”, understood as those committed to the violent overthrow of the Northern Ireland state, on the other, emphasizing that their quarrel was with the latter. In practice, however, the boundary may not be so easy to draw. Whilst the secularization of political identity in Northern Ireland seems significant and unquestionable, it has not led to any lessening of the “sectarian” division between Protestants/Unionists/Loyalists, on the one hand, and Catholics/Nationalists/Republicans, on the other. Segregation remains the norm in residence, education and social life, particularly, but not exclusively, in working-class neighborhoods; politics remains almost entirely structured around the “sectarian” divide; and “sectarian” disputes, which sometimes erupt into violence over issues, such as parades and flags are a constant threat. The obvious explanation for this continuity of conflict is that, as many cited above have noted, it was never a religious conflict in the first place. Gilligan (2017) has moved from this conclusion to assert that sectarianism may, therefore, be designated as a type of racism, but, as shown above, there are still significant differences between racism and sectarianism: crucially, that racism is based upon traits seen as innate, whilst

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sectarianism is precisely premised upon the possibility of choice. Rather than being a conflict between groups who regard each other as innately different, these are conflicts between those who adhere to different ideologies: the “other” is demonized, not because they are inherently different, but because they could and should be the same, but choose not to be. Irish nationalists, in unionist eyes, refuse to accept their democratically mandated status as British citizens; unionists, in nationalist eyes, deny their innate Irishness. Whilst racism, then, is discrimination based on perceived innate differences stemming from an ideology of race, sectarianism is discrimination based on perceived adherence to an opposed ideology. Crucially, it is irrelevant whether that ideology is religious: Protestant or Catholic; or secular, unionist or nationalist. In Northern Ireland, we can observe a perceptible shift over the last century from an emphasis on the first to an emphasis on the second, without any lessening of the sectarian effects of the divide. A conception of sectarianism as social discrimination based on ideology also accommodates the “liberal sectarianism”, identified by Liechty & Clegg (2001:25), which may be seen as a form of “class sectarianism”. What role then, does social class play in the sectarian divide?

Social Class and Sectarianism in Northern Ireland It is widely accepted that sectarianism is pervasive throughout Northern Irish society (Irish Inter-Church Meeting 1993:7-24; Liechty et al 2001:149–52). Yet McAuley (1991:46) notes that “the culture of sectarianism is most easily identified within the working class”. Conversely, McFarlane (1986:98), in his fieldwork in rural Ulster, observes that “everyone seems to be agreed that the middle class, whether Catholic or Protestant, takes less of an interest in whether people are Catholic or Protestant …” Working-class areas of Belfast and other towns in Northern Ireland are prominently decorated with murals, flags and banners expressing allegiance to loyalism or nationalism, as well as to various groups aligned with these ideologies from flute bands and football clubs to armed paramilitary organizations. Such displays of communal solidarity are rare or non-existent in more affluent areas. Moreover, the ranks of the organizations represented by such iconography are overwhelmingly filled from the working classes. These groups, including the Loyal Orders, republican political organizations, marching bands, football supporters’ clubs and paramilitary groups, are the most visible means through which sectarian identity is enacted in Northern Ireland. It is particularly noteworthy that the violent paramilitary groups whose “war” is generally referred to as “the Troubles” are overwhelmingly working-class in

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composition. This reality is reflected in the statistics regarding both casualties and incarcerations for terrorist activity during the Troubles. McKittrick et al (1999:1482) note that in Belfast, where the majority of killings occurred: large areas of the city, particularly the eastern and southern suburbs, have escaped many of the worst effects of the troubles. The concentration of killings has been in the north and west, which together account for well over half of all deaths. The names of the most violent areas occur again and again… Falls, Andersonstown, Ballymurphy, Whiterock, Woodvale, Shankill, Crumlin, Ardoyne, New Lodge, Tiger’s Bay, Short Strand, the Markets and so on. These have been the heartlands of paramilitarism, producing large percentages of the victims, as well as large percentages of the prison population.

The areas named by McKittrick et al. as the most violent are all workingclass areas. Today, many of these areas are still divided from each other by “peace walls”: massive barriers put in place to prevent violence at the interfaces of nationalist and unionist working-class areas of the city. The eastern and southern suburbs which escaped the worst of the violence are predominantly middle-class areas. No peace walls are considered necessary here. Even when the middle-classes live segregated lives and harbor sectarian animosities, they do not engage in violent attacks on each other. So, whilst the sectarian divide may indeed run from top to bottom of society in Northern Ireland, it is in working-class areas that it appears most prominent and most central to everyday life; it is in working-class areas that people are most at risk of sectarian attack; and it is overwhelmingly in working-class areas that individuals have been prepared to engage in violence and to risk death, injury or imprisonment for the cause of nationalism or unionism. How should we understand this dynamic? Scholars who have paid attention to the significance of social class in relation to sectarian conflict in Ireland and Northern Ireland have done so overwhelmingly from Marxist perspectives. Moreover, Marxists have had an answer to the question: “what is sectarianism good for?” To Marxists, sectarianism is good for the ruling class, because it keeps the working class divided. Marxists, however, have struggled to produce a comprehensive analysis that explains how this happens. Bew et al (1980) claimed that the failure of the political left in Northern Ireland was, in part, a failure of Irish Marxism: “Irish Marxists”, they asserted, “have provided neither a clear analysis of the significance of the successive dispositions of local political forces nor, consequently, a strategy which could ever have led an alliance of progressive forces to victory”. I now move, then, to examine the insights

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and shortcomings of Marxist analyses of class and sectarianism in Northern Ireland.

Marxist Analyses of Sectarian Conflict John Whyte (1990), in his seminal survey of approaches to the analysis of conflict in Northern Ireland, divides Marxist analyses into Orthodox Marxism and Revisionist Marxism. Whyte (1990) traces Orthodox Marxist thought on Ireland back to the writings of James Connolly, who equated capitalism with the British Empire, and, therefore, regarded separation from Britain as a prerequisite for building socialism in Ireland. Crucially, Connolly regarded solidarity between the workers of Britain and Ireland as impossible, due to the different contexts in which their respective labor movements had developed. According to Connolly, whilst the Irish working-class were “rebels in spirit and democratic in feeling”, British workers had, for centuries, venerated the institutions against which the labor movement required them to rebel (Connolly 1948:105). Connolly’s thought foundered on the question of Ulster. He observed that: “According to all Socialist theories, North-East Ulster, being the most developed industrially, ought to be the quarter in which class lines of cleavage, politically and industrially, should be the most pronounced and class rebellion the most common”. Yet Connolly was forced to acknowledge that the Protestant workers of north-east Ulster were in fact the group in Ireland most stalwartly committed to British rule. He explained this as a consequence of “the perfectly devilish ingenuity of the master class”, who, by planting Presbyterians on lands formerly held by Catholics, created “a feeling of common interest” between Episcopalian “slavedrivers” and Presbyterian “slaves”, both of whom had to defend themselves against dispossessed Catholics (Connolly 1948:102). Connolly, however, did not believe that this alliance could last into the twentieth century, because “The interests of no economic class in Ireland, as a class, were bound up with the Union” (Connolly 1948:13). Rather, Connolly believed, Protestant workers in Ulster would come to see their common interest with Catholic workers in throwing off British rule. The only circumstance which could prevent this, according to Connolly, was the partition of Ireland, which he famously asserted would result in all hope of uniting the workers being shattered (Connolly 1948:114) by a “carnival of reaction both North and South” (Connolly 1948:111). It was ironic then, that in 1916, Connolly committed himself to a southern uprising which led, if not inevitably, at

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least by a predictable process, to partition, as well as to his own death in front of a firing squad. Whyte (1990:179) notes that Connolly’s “orthodox Marxist” successors (e.g. Jackson 1946; McCann 1974; Farrell 1976) regarded history as proving Connolly right regarding partition, seeing it as “an evil to be undone”. Moreover, they largely concurred with Connolly’s assertion that the opposition of unionist workers in Ulster to Irish nationalism was a consequence of “false consciousness” resulting from slavishly imbibing ruling-class propaganda. Connollyite Marxists, then, effectively constituted a faction within the nationalist movement. Whyte notes that their analyses shared the same flaws as other nationalist theories: they failed to adequately recognize the distinctiveness and autonomy of the Ulster Protestant working-class. As a result, the Marxist faith that if the border was removed, Protestant workers would abandon their separate identity seems to have been implicitly based more on essentialist understandings of nationhood than on economic analysis. Connolly’s detailed explanation of why the Protestant workers of Belfast were, in his words, “the least rebellious slaves in the industrial world” (1948:102) was not matched by any explanation at all as to why workers in Great Britain also “venerated” the very institutions which Connolly regarded as oppressing them (Connolly 1948:105). Despite acknowledging that it was only Irish Catholic workers who were “natural rebels” (Connolly 1948:104), Connolly vehemently rejected any claim of commonality between workers in Ulster and Great Britain, declaring: that because the unionist workers of Ulster live under the same industrial conditions as do those of Great Britain, they are therefore subject to the same passions and to be influenced by the same methods of propaganda is a doctrine almost screamingly funny in its absurdity (1948:108).

A later generation of Marxist thinkers, having witnessed the failure of Connolly’s own project as well as the failure of his successors to adequately explain subsequent events in Northern Ireland, did not regard such an idea as absurd. This was the starting point for what Whyte (1990:184–191) calls “Revisionist Marxism”. Whyte sees the development of Revisionist Marxism as rooted in pamphlets produced by the British and Irish Communist Organization (BICO) from 1971 onwards (e.g. BICO 1971a, 1971b, 1972a, 1972b, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1977). The ideas pioneered by BICO were taken up by a number of other

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Marxist authors (e.g. Bores 1972; Van der Straeten & Daufouy 1972; Carr 1974; Morgan 1978; Patterson 1980). The central argument of Revisionist Marxist writers was that the Britishness of Ulster Protestants was not an illusion resulting from ruling-class propaganda, but had an objective social base, resulting from long-established social, cultural and economic realities. Ulster really was tied to Britain in ways that other parts of Ireland were not. As a result, it was logical for Ulster workers to pursue their interests within the context of the British state and to resist exclusion from that state. Whyte noted that all Marxist scholars since the 1970s had found themselves in the revisionist camp (1990:189), and that their work had effectively made traditional one-nation nationalism an untenable intellectual position (1990:191). Whyte also noted, however, that if Orthodox Marxism had accepted the fundamental tenets of natonalism and shared its fundamental error, in failing to recognize the autonomy of the Ulster loyalist workingclass, the reverse was also true. Revisionist Marxism effectively became unionist Marxism and shared the fundamental flaw of other unionist analyses, in failing to recognize the reality and significance of discrimination against Catholics within the Northern Ireland state. To sum up what we have learned from Marxist analysis, Orthodox Marxists have shown why it was logical for southern Catholic workers to oppose British rule, but have not provided any convincing explanation of why northern Protestant workers refused to join them. Revisionist Marxists have shown why it made sense for northern Protestant workers to remain loyal to Britain, but not why northern Catholic workers refused to join them. So, whilst both strands of Marxist thought have offered useful insights, neither have provided a comprehensive explanation of the sectarian divide between workers in Northern Ireland. Moreover, as Whyte (1990:190) points out, economic explanations that were highly relevant in Connolly’s time, when Ulster was an industrial powerhouse of Empire and the other Irish provinces were dominated by an agrarian economy, are of little relevance after the 1960s, a period during which Britain and Ireland have had increasingly converging post-industrial economies characterized by being deeply enmeshed in European and global markets. Yet sectarian divisions today are no less deep. Whyte himself ultimately rejects the Marxist focus on economic issues in favor of his own “Internal Conflict” approach, which sees the Northern Ireland conflict as ethnic in nature, resulting from the competing claims to territory and identity of two groups differentiated as much by culture, religion and historical experience as by economic factors.

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Whyte’s “ethnic conflict” paradigm, updated by McGarry and O’Leary (1995) to include interaction between “internal” and “external” forces, has become accepted orthodoxy in studies of conflict in Northern Ireland, and this paper is developed within its broad parameters. Nevertheless, the ethnic conflict approach cannot answer the question central to this paper. If the conflict is the result of ethnic differences, why is it that these differences are most stalwartly maintained and defended by the working-classes? Why is it that the flags, murals and memorials to fallen fighters are overwhelmingly found in working-class areas, both loyalist and republican; and why is it that the names on those memorials are overwhelmingly working-class names? In answering these questions, neither Marxist nor ethnic-conflict approaches are adequate. Instead, I turn to a newer paradigm emerging from feminist theory.

Intersectionality The term “intersectionality” was coined by feminist scholar, Kimberlé Crenshaw, in response to the failure of both feminist theory and anti-racist politics to adequately address the experience of black women in the USA. In a seminal paper, Crenshaw (1989) showed that black women were discriminated against in the dimensions of both race and gender, and that these dimensions intersected to disadvantage black women in ways which were missed by both feminist approaches, whose understanding of “women” was based on the experience of white women, and anti-racist approaches, whose understanding of “blacks” was based on the experience of black men. An understanding of black women’s experience required the dimensions of gender and race to be considered together, with a focus on the way they intersected. In the cases examined by Crenshaw, this intersection resulted in black women being disadvantaged in ways that neither black men nor white women suffered. This accumulation of disadvantage could be related to an earlier work by black feminist Frances Beale (1970), Double Jeopardy, which asserted that if a black man was a slave, a black woman was a slave of a slave. An intersectional approach enables the consideration of more complex relationships between dimensions of power than double-jeopardy, however. In another influential paper, Leslie McCall (2005) demonstrated that the same dimensions of discrimination: race and gender, for example, could intersect in different ways, with different consequences, in different contexts. To take a contemporary example, whilst black women in the USA may be most disadvantaged in the labor market, it is black men who are most vulnerable to police brutality. An intersectional approach requires, therefore, that we

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pay attention to the precise ways that different dimensions of power intersect in particular circumstances, and the effects of those intersections in that particular social context. Crenshaw (1989) introduced her seminal paper with a reference to a previous work by Gloria Hull (1982), All the Women are White, All the Blacks are Men, But Some of Us are Brave. An equivalent Ulster version might be entitled All the Working Class are Catholic, All the Protestants are Bigots, But Some of Us are Scared. I now move, therefore, to explore the intersection of sectarian affiliation with social class in Ulster through the experience of working-class loyalists, drawing upon both historical and ethnographic evidence.

Intersections of Class and Sectarian Identity: 1795–1880 Orthodox Marxists from Connolly (1948) onward have seen the devotion of Ulster Protestant workers to a British or Orange identity as resulting from ruling-class manipulation. Given this assumption, we might expect that the ruling class would encourage organizations such as the Orange Order, devoted to maintaining and promoting Protestant and British identity. There were indeed instances where the ruling class could be seen to “beat the Orange drum” (Whyte 1990:180), and the Orange Order, from its inception, sought to attract aristocrats to assume leadership positions, but “most Anglo-Irish landlords, especially in the north, would have looked upon Orangeism with disdain” (Jess 2007:36–7). For much of the nineteenth century, Orangeism was derided, suppressed and even outlawed by the ruling class. The very first Orange parade in Lurgan following the establishment of the Order by Co. Armagh weavers in 1795 was described by the establishment newspaper, The Dublin Evening Post, in contemptuous terms as “a motley crew of turncoats … accompanied by a multitude of boys and country trolls” (Bryan 2000:31). The reference to “turncoats” is interesting, suggesting that perhaps yesterday’s United Irishmen had become today’s Orangemen. Three years after the establishment of the Order, the United Irishmen rose in rebellion in both the north, where they were supported by both Catholics and lower-class Presbyterians, and the south, where their ranks were filled largely from the Catholic peasantry. Many Orangemen joined the Yeomanry, who were recruited to bolster the strength of the army in Ireland. The United Irishmen sought to “unite Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter in the common name of Irishman”. The disastrous outcome of the rebellion, in which 30,000 died, had precisely the opposite effect. The rebellion ended in atrocities and sectarian massacres by both sides, and significantly,

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Protestants were victims of both sides. In the south, Protestant civilians were massacred by Catholic rebels, whilst in the north, Protestant rebels were the victims of atrocities by Catholic militia (Elliott 2000:260). The effect was to intensify sectarian divisions and end any possibility of a unified nationalist movement (Elliott 2000:262). In the aftermath of the rebellion, nationalism, under Daniel O’Connell, became overtly Catholic, whilst the Orange Order spread rapidly from its Armagh heartland to other parts of Ulster and the rest of Ireland. Whilst the Orange Order ostentatiously paraded its loyalty to the state, the state was not comfortable with working-class people parading their power on the streets, regardless of what colors they were displaying. In 1813, Baron Smith of Armagh (1813:23 quoted in Foster 1989:303) described Orangeism as “a rebellious and insurrectionary propensity, gone astray, and running, contradictorily, in the channel of allegiance”. Jess (2007:39) observes that in the 1820s, the Order was condemned by the British establishment as being “full of bigotry and proletarian expression”. Half a century later, Earl Fortescue, Chief Secretary of Ireland, condemned the Orange tradition of Lambeg drumming with the assertion that “the drums that resound all over Ulster are more worthy of some African village than a flourishing province in Ireland” (McClelland 1990:62). The equation of Orange drumming with the “uncivilized” practices of colonized peoples is a powerful trope that was still evident a century and more later when “Young Unionist” wrote to the Belfast Newsletter: “Surely if the ability to beat a drum were a mark of an advancing civilization the most primitive natives of Africa would now be masters of the world” (6 July 1960 quoted in Bryan 2000:70); and when a Protestant former missionary told researcher Glenn Jordan (2001:119) that “I walked through an Orange parade in Waringstown … it just reminded me of the animistic practices in Africa … the drumming, this frenetic drumming”. Distaste for lower-class loyalism amongst the privileged was not only expressed discursively: for much of the nineteenth century, Ulster was subject to extensive legislation designed to limit or completely proscribe the public expression of loyalism. In 1825, the Orange Order was made a proscribed organization by the Unlawful Societies (Ireland) Act (HaddickFlynn 1999:226) and was officially dissolved until the legislation lapsed in 1828 (Haddick-Flynn 1999:236). In 1835, under intense pressure from the government, following a Parliamentary investigation into Orangeism which heard claims that military lodges were undermining the discipline of the army, the Order was again compelled to “voluntarily” disband (Haddick-

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Flynn 1999:270). The Order was not reconstituted for a decade, until 1845. Five years later, the Party Processions Act of 1850 unconditionally banned all parades, and the extent of government hostility to the Order was apparent when its annual “Loyal Address” to the monarch was rejected by the Home Secretary (Haddick-Flynn 1999:280). In 1860, the Party Emblems Act further banned the display of flags and the playing of music in public (McClelland 1990:23–4). In theory, these laws applied to the whole of Ireland but in practice, they were only enforced in Ulster and their effects therefore fell disproportionately on loyalists (McClelland 1990:25). The question arises of why the British state, for over half a century, found it advisable to enact draconian laws to suppress an organization which supposedly existed to express loyalty to that state and which had, moreover, demonstrated the reality of that loyalty during the 1798 rebellion through service in the Yeomanry? It could be argued that in the 1825 Unlawful Associations Act, the Orange Order was collateral damage: banned to show even-handedness in the banning of the government’s real target, Daniel O’Connell’s Catholic Association. If so, none within the ruling class showed any inclination to defend the Order, including its Grand Master, Earl O’Neill who meekly disbanded the organization, warning members that any further lodge meetings would be illegal (Haddick-Flynn 1999:226). A significant government concern was undoubtedly public order. There were numerous instances of violent confrontations between loyalists and nationalists at parades. Often, both sides were armed, and the so-called “Battle of Dolly’s Brae” near Castewellan, Co. Down, in 1849, was the most infamous of a number of confrontations involving exchanges of musket fire which resulted in fatalities (Haddick-Flynn 1999:274–80). There seems to have been more to establishment hostility to the Order than just the public order issue, however. The idea that soldiers in British regiments might be organizing themselves around agendas which were not those of the ruling class seems to have been deeply alarming to many in Parliament. It was claimed that up to 50 regiments could not be relied upon, and there were even rumors (almost certainly false) of a potential Orange coup d’état to replace Princess Victoria, the heir to the throne, with the King’s brother, the Duke of Cumberland, who was also Grand Master of the Orange Order— one of successive upper-class leaders the Order had attracted with the aim of gaining respectability (Haddick-Flynn 1999:266–70). In this case, the attempt to claim respectability through upper-class affiliation backfired disastrously. In short, the ruling-class were profoundly unsettled by any signs that the lower-classes were organizing themselves autonomously, regardless of how loyal they claimed to be.

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It was the legislation outlawing parading which eventually triggered large scale resistance by working-class loyalists to the British state and, subsequently, made visible broader class-conflicts within unionism. During the early 1860s, a number of nationalist parades were held in the south and west of Ireland, without any attempt by the government to stop them or charge the organizers with an offence, but in July 1863, eight loyalist millworkers from Gilford, Co. Down, were charged with parading behind pipes and drums when leaving work. Their trial, in 1864, at which they were sentenced to three months’ imprisonment, was attended by William Johnston, a fiercely anti-Catholic minor landlord and master of the Ballykilbeg Orange Lodge in Co. Down (McClelland 1990:25). A week later, 60,000 nationalists carrying pikes, dressed in green regalia and following a uniformed pipe band, marched through the center of Dublin to commemorate Daniel O’Connell (McClelland 1990:26; Haddick-Flynn 1999:281). No action was taken against them. Stung by the perceived unfairness, Johnston resolved to organize a demonstration against the restrictive legislation. This immediately drew him into confrontation with the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, now led by the Earl of Enniskillen, which, whilst supportive in principle of the right to march, refused to approve any public demonstration. Johnston decided to proceed without Grand Lodge approval, and circulated flyers headed with the traditional loyalist slogan, “No Surrender”. The flyers referenced the O’Connell parade in Dublin and called on loyalists to assemble at the Maze on July 12th, the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne, “[n]ot in triumph over any class of our countrymen but in self-assertion of our rights to be free”. At the next meeting of Grand Lodge, Johnston was forced to cancel the meeting and issue an apology under threat of expulsion from the Order. To a subsequent address by the Earl, inspired by the growth of the Fenians, 4 calling for Orangemen to be vigilant in reporting lawbreakers to the government, Johnston responded with an open letter to the press, declaring: “we owe nothing to the Government, and should do nothing for them till they trust us as loyal freemen, and strike off our enacted fetterments. Let Orangemen … not become flunkies or spaniels …” He was again threatened with expulsion and forced to apologize. On July 12th, 1866, however, Johnston circumvented the ban on public processions by holding a “Grand Protestant Demonstration” on his own land in the Ballykilbeg Demesne. Despite warnings from the Downpatrick

4 A republican organization dedicated to overthrowing British rule in Ireland by force. The name referenced the legendary ancient warriors of Ireland, the Fianna.

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Catholic priest of a likely breach of the peace, and a discouraging letter from the Under Secretary of Ireland, Johnston pressed ahead with his demonstration, which was attended by about 9,000 Orangemen and supporters from Belfast and Down and passed off peacefully. The first speaker was the Liberal MP, George Whalley, a strongly anti-Catholic Welshman who Johnston had met at Trinity College, Dublin. In its report of the event, the Belfast Newsletter, which supported Grand Lodge on the parading issue, denounced Whalley as a supporter of the radical party in Parliament (McClelland 1990:33–4). Given confidence by his success, the following year Johnston defied both government and Grand Lodge by leading an illegal parade from Newtownards to Bangor on July 12th. 10,000 Orangemen assembled in Newtownards, and by the time they reached Bangor the numbers had doubled. Johnston was charged with illegal assembly, and refusing to plead guilty and be bound over, he was sentenced to two month’s imprisonment, the second to be remitted on payment of bail. McClelland (1990:41–2) notes that every year since 1850, a few Orangemen had been gaoled for parading offences, but being of humble origins, none had garnered much publicity. Johnston’s imprisonment embarrassed the government, especially when he refused to accept bail, his health began to deteriorate, and his popularity amongst working-class Orangemen grew (Haddick-Flynn 1999:283). After serving seven weeks, he became ill, and fearing his death in prison, Dublin Castle ordered his immediate release. He was given a hero’s welcome in Downpatrick, with loyalists from Belfast also attending (Haddick-Flynn 1999:283). Johnston built on his martyrdom to pursue a long-held parliamentary ambition: standing for one of the two Belfast seats for the Belfast Working Man’s Protestant Association, which had been formed as a support group for him during his imprisonment, declaring that he had been “betrayed and deserted by the aristocracy on account of his thorough identification with the Protestant working-classes”. The Association identified itself, then, in both sectarian terms, as Protestant, and in class terms, as being for the Working Man. Although Johnston himself was a member of the landlord class, (although marginally so, being in perennial financial difficulty) he positioned himself as a voice for the working class. At the hustings, he was introduced as “the working man’s friend” (McClelland 1990:47); and following the observation that “[p]roperty has its duties as well as its rights!” as a “kind and indulgent landlord” who had never evicted a tenant; as well as “a sterling and uncompromising Protestant” (McClelland

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1990:55). In his own election address, Johnston spoke in favor of electoral reform, tenants’ rights and the repeal of the Party Processions Act, whilst directing his appeal specifically at the working class with the assertion that “capital will always … have its rights defended; and therefore, it is more necessary that the peculiar interests of labor should be watched over, and taken care of by those who have the confidence of the employed” (McClelland 1990:52). Johnston allied himself with the Liberal candidate, Thomas McClure, against the Conservatives, represented by sitting candidate, Charles Lanyon, prominent architect and builder of Queen’s University, and John Mulholland, a wealthy linen merchant who had supported the Grand Lodge against Johnston on the parading issue (McClellan 1990:50). After a bitterly fought election at which there was considerable tumult and some violence, Johnston topped the poll, unseating Lanyon, and McClure was also elected. Strikingly, Johnston was welcomed back to Downpatrick by a large torchlit procession, led by town bands and including both Protestants and Catholics, and it was reported that “no party tunes were played (McClelland 1990:57). Johnston held the seat until his death in 1902, and in office, eventually achieved the repeal of the Party Processions Act, in 1872. He also supported the Factory Acts, tenant rights, the secret ballot, women’s suffrage and higher education for women, sometimes in opposition to the Orange hierarchy (McClelland 1990:60,74). Johnston’s career is important as he acted as a catalyst in a period in which class antagonisms within unionism were brought into the open and literally fought over. Importantly, his ability to act on economic issues, such as the rights of factory workers and tenant farmers was inseparable from his perceived position as a staunch Protestant, and from his defense of the working-class cultural practice of parading. Although class tensions within unionism became less visible in later years, they never went away. Johnston’s radical edge was blunted in later life, when he became politically and financially dependent upon the Conservatives. This, however, was part of a broader shift in class relations as the Home Rule issue forged new crossclass alliances within both unionism and nationalism.

Intersections of Class and Sectarian Identity: 1880–1969 As Belfast industrialized and grew, between 1850 and 1870, the Orange Order trebled its membership in the city whilst rural membership fell (Foster 1988:390). Jess (2007:38) observes that “the class wounds within the Order were cauterized to an extent by the introduction of Gladstone’s 1886 Home Rule Bill”. Landlords, such as Hugh Montgomery and Edward Saunderson,

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who had previously expressed hostility to the Order, changed their attitude and “the Home Rule scare brought more and more middle class Protestants within the Order’s ambit” (Haddick-Flynn 1999:310). Jess (2007:38) asserts that Home Rule was “a recruiting sergeant for the Orange Institution” whilst Phoenix (1995:1) says that the Order became “the social cement of unionism”, bringing together “the master and the man, the landed classes and the middle classes, the shipyard workers and the agricultural laborers” (Jess 2007:38). Mogey (1957:78) noted that the plethora of lodges in a locality meant “that many gradations of social prestige and personality can be fitted into the social network. Each lodge is a gathering of peers, but taken together they allow wide differences in social outlook to exist within the same organization”. Hastings (2003:3) also notes that lodges “acted as self-help organizations in an era before any kind of official social welfare existed”. The influx of more affluent members made it more effective in this regard. The increasing middle-class influence within the Orange Order forced it to change its image and its character. Previously seen largely as “a working man’s drinking club” (Jess 2007:39), Orange lodges started to assert their respectability by moving out of their traditional homes in pubs, to newly constructed Orange Halls, built with the resources made available by the new cross-class membership. William Johnston, who himself became a teetotaler during this period, was one of many involved in setting up Temperance or Total Abstinence lodges, in a significant move to overcome the Order’s image of drunken rowdiness and make it more acceptable to the middle-classes (McClelland 1990:82). Although the 1886 Home Rule Bill failed, Home Rule dominated the political agenda in Ireland until the outbreak of the Great War in 1914. The cross-class unionist alliance established in the 1880s was solidified in the establishment of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), in 1912, manned by the working class but resourced, armed and officered by the elites, and cemented in the shared sacrifice of the Somme and subsequent battlefields, when the UVF became the 36th (Ulster) Division of the British Army. The Great War is often portrayed as the sacrifice of working-class soldiers by a heartless officer class. The reality was different. The privileged classes suffered proportionately higher casualties than the working classes for two primary reasons: firstly, they were under much greater social pressure to enlist and secondly, officers were deliberately targeted by enemy forces (Winter 1977). The cross-class solidarity stemming from the extraordinary sacrifices of the Great War was sealed again during World War II and

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effectively lasted until the 1960s. The reasons for this solidarity were not entirely emotional, however. The alliance brought material benefits to the unionist working class. Not only did it enable the Orange Order to become “the invisible hand which pulled the strings in many areas of employment” (Haddick-Flynn 1999:334) in an environment in which senior unionist politicians openly endorsed discrimination against Catholic workers (Haddick-Flynn 1999:333), but even whilst Northern Ireland remained the poorest region of the UK, it still proved less hostile to working-class welfare than the newly independent Free State, where, by 1922, “IRA (Irish Republican Army) volunteers were being used … as strike-breakers … Meath … and acting as arbitrators for lower farm wages in Clare” (Foster 1988:515 emphasis in original); “[a]ny ideas of a social-welfare utopia were rigorously dismissed; the old-age pension was actually cut by a shilling a week in 1924” and “[u]nemployment and other labor benefits remained minimal, pegged at pre-1922 levels” (Foster 1988:519). In Northern Ireland, in contrast, the Unionist government “prioritized the issue of remaining “step by step” with the rest of the UK in respect of welfare benefits and social legislation throughout the inter-war era” (Walker 2008:63–6). This policy continued after World War II, with the introduction of the National Health Service at a time when the Catholic Church was vetoing any move towards socialized medicine in the newly declared Republic of Ireland (McKee 1986). The assertion painted on loyalist gable walls in the post-war years that “We Will Not Give Up the Blue Skies of Ulster for the Grey Mists of an Irish Republic” seemed to have some basis in material reality. Whilst the unionist cross-class alliance may have been effective in safeguarding the interests of the unionist working-class, this did not happen without tensions and conflict. Class tensions continued to manifest themselves throughout the entire period. In January 1885, Orangeman William McCormick warned the Belfast Conservative Association meeting in Ballymacarrett that “they must send forward men who would demand that justice and fair play were dealt out to peasants as well as peers; to labor as well as capital” (McClelland 1990:92). The Rev. Kane, Belfast Grand Master, was horrified, describing McCormick as “a man whose sentiments and opinions suit the extreme communistic school, and who … has played the cuckoo by laying his nasty radical eggs in the clean conservative Orange nest” (McClelland 1990:92). The Orange nest, however, proved receptive to such radical eggs: four days later, the East Belfast Orangemen selected a candidate to oppose the Tories in the constituency, and a speaker at the meeting received loud cheers when he declared “The proposed constituency being composed mainly of working-people … we may fairly claim that our

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future member shall enter Parliament the pledged advocate and friend of the classes who live by labor … we ask you to look at … questions from the workers’ point of view rather than that of the employer” (McClelland 1990:93). Attempts by the Grand Master to swing the Orangemen behind the Conservative candidate were rebuffed with the remark that “the days had gone by when Orangemen should be made tools of” (McClelland 1990:93) and in the election, Edward de Cobain, the Orange Labour candidate, took the seat which he held until 1891 when a sexual scandal ended his career (McClelland 1990:95–6). Class tensions within unionism erupted again in 1902, when Edward Saunderson, aristocratic former opponent of Orangeism who had recently become Belfast Grand Master, was heckled during his July 12th speech. These tensions led to the formation of the Independent Orange Order (IOO), led by evangelical preacher, Thomas Sloan and Orange radical, Lindsay Crawford. The IOO combined fierce anti-Catholicism with attacks on the “elitist” leadership of the Orange Order and demands for worker’s rights. When William Johnston died, Sloan stood for his parliamentary seat and won. The IOO was thrown into crisis in 1905, however, when it issued the Magheramorne Manifesto, which appeared to support Home Rule, in an attempt to forge an alliance between working-class loyalists and nationalists. This was a step too far for even radical IOO members: Sloan swiftly backtracked and Crawford left the IOO, which continued to exist as a religiously conservative branch of Orangeism, abandoning its political radicalism (Haddick-Flynn 1999:315–8). The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) which grew out of the movement against Home Rule forestalled further open class-conflict within Unionism by giving the working class recognition in the Ulster Unionist Labour Association (UULA). Walker observes that the UULA’s “trade union credentials were genuine”, and that it was successful over decades in pressuring the Unionist government to maintain parity with Great Britain in social welfare provision (2008:360–1) despite “middle-class anguish over ‘socialistic’ measures” (2008:361–2). The UULA folded in 1949 following the death of its leader, and “the late 1950s and early 1960s witnessed a crisis in the relationship between the UUP and the Protestant working-class” as industry in Northern Ireland shed jobs and the Unionist government failed to secure help from Westminster to ameliorate massively growing unemployment (Walker 2008:362). Looking back at this period now, we can see that this was the period in which the

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effects of globalization started to be felt by traditional industries throughout the UK as manufacturing jobs were offshored, causing massive disruption and hardship in working-class communities. Walker (2008:362) notes that the UUP lost seats in working-class constituencies to the Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP), a party which focused on class issues whilst taking a formally pro-Union position, and to “independent unionists” who “made a populist appeal to working-class voters on the twin grounds of class interest and ultra-loyalism”. Walker (2008:365) observes that “It is a mistake to assume that hardline unionists were necessarily ‘right-wing’ unionists: most, in fact, prioritized the interests of working-class unionists”. It was this blend of class-interest and ultra-loyalism which eventually coalesced in Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which combined “uncompromising loyalism and social and economic agitation” to displace the NILP and absorb independent unionists as the main opposition to the UUP during the Troubles (Walker 2008:365). Tonge et al (2014:15) show that the DUP’s openness to working-class recruits, contrasted with the UUP” the “party of the middle to upper classes, the retired generals and the big business people” to quote DUP minister, Gregory Campbell, was a significant factor in the growth of the party (Tonge et al 2014:14–15) and the DUP in its early years largely attracted the votes of “the lower social classes” the “less qualified” and voters who were left-leaning on economic issues, whilst “the middle-class salariat were more likely to back the UUP” (Tonge et al 2014:174). The outbreak of the Troubles saw increasing distance between middle-class “liberal unionists”, who were “rarely in tune with the culture of the working-class” and were perceived by working-class voters as guilty of “indifference to their class interests and insufficient commitment to the Union which was basic to working class improvement and … identity” (Walker 2008:364–5) and working-class unionists, increasingly referred to as “loyalists”, following UUP Prime Minister Terence O’Neill’s reference to “so-called loyalists” in his 1968 “Ulster at the Crossroads” speech. By the end of the 1970s, the unionist middle class, particularly in urban areas, had largely withdrawn from the Orange Order and the marching bands associated with it, and the loyalist paramilitary groups which grew during this period were exclusively working-class in composition. The increasing distance between the unionist establishment and workingclass unionists turned to open opposition in 1973, when the Sunningdale Agreement to introduce a power-sharing government, negotiated by the new UUP leader, Brian Faulkner, was brought down through a general strike organized by the Ulster Workers Council (UWC), a coalition of working-

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class loyalists led by trade-union shop stewards and including paramilitary groups and opposition politicians, such as Paisley. After British Prime Minister Harold Wilson described the strikers as “sponging on Westminster”, even middle-class unionist support swung behind them and the executive collapsed after 14 days of strike action. The UWC strike is a rare example of a general strike which totally succeeded in its objectives, but its working-class leaders quickly faded from prominence and such unity and effective organization were not repeated. Over ensuing decades, the DUP expanded its appeal to the middle classes (Tonge et al 2014:174) and it used opposition to the Good Friday Agreement (GFA), negotiated by UUP leader, David Trimble, in 1998, to displace the UUP as the largest unionist party. The DUP subsequently entered a power-sharing government with Sinn Féin and became embroiled in a succession of financial scandals which ultimately led to the collapse of the executive in 2017. Whilst there is now widespread disillusion with the party amongst working-class unionists, no effective challenger has appeared to date, leaving the DUP in the hegemonic position within unionism once enjoyed by the UUP, but without the untrammeled power that the UUP enjoyed from the 1920s to the 1960s. Meanwhile, relations between the unionist working class and the unionist middle class probably reached an all-time nadir in 2013, when the social media site, Loyalists Against Democracy (LAD) became a popular phenomenon. The site, run by middle-class unionists, including members of the short-lived NI21 political party, ruthlessly satirized loyalists, particularly protesters against the removal of the Union Flag from Belfast City Hall, whom it described, mocking their working-class accents, as “fleggers”. “Fleggers” were derided for their lack of education, political naivety, sectarianism and inability to conform to middle-class discursive and behavioral norms. At a time when loyalist protestors were in open confrontation with the government and significant numbers of them were being arrested and gaoled, this assault from fellow-unionists was a blow which left many incredulous and bitter.

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Lessons from History What can we learn from this examination of class relations within Ulster unionism over 200 years? Firstly, that the dominant classes have always been suspicious, if not hostile, to working-class self-organization, no matter how “loyal”, from the 1795 formation of the Orange Order to the 1972 UWC strike and the 2013 flag protests, because they have always taken working-class protestations of loyalty with a large pinch of salt, being fully aware that the interests and dispositions of working-class unionists were different and often opposed to their own. Secondly, that the Connollyite attribution of working-class support for unionism to “false consciousness” stemming from uncritical acceptance of ruling-class propaganda is not borne out by the evidence. Over the period examined, working-class unionists repeatedly showed a grasp of their class position and a determination to improve it by whatever means. Indeed, during the period from William Johnston’s election in 1868 to the establishment of the Northern Ireland state in 1922, they repeatedly asserted this determination in a language of class conflict which would have been very acceptable to Connolly. Where they differed from Connolly was not in their understanding of their class position, but in their belief that it could only be maintained or improved within the union with Great Britain. Consequently, whilst working-class unionists were often willing to embrace class politics, they were only willing to do so within the framework of unionism. Indeed, the most effective unionist radicals, from Johnston to Paisley, unsettled the unionist hierarchy by combining attention to “bread and butter” class issues with accusations that the elite were insufficiently zealous in their defense of Protestantism or the Union. Space does not allow a detailed examination of the class dynamics within nationalism over the same period, although a number of works shed much light on this (e.g. Lyons 1971; Foster 1988; Elliott 2000). I suggest, however, that a similar pattern emerges. Class consciousness was always apparent in nationalist activism, but it was always channeled through a sectarian filter. From Connolly himself in the early twentieth century to the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) in the 1970s, and even postceasefire Sinn Féin in the early twenty-first century, socialist ideas were never absent, but were always subordinated to nationalism. When the Official IRA abandoned their nationalism in favor of pure Marxism during their transformation into the “Workers’ Party” during the mid-1970s, they

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were swiftly eclipsed by the Provisional IRA, just as the NILP were eclipsed by the DUP within unionism. The question, therefore, arises: why was the combination of ethnic and class solidarity so effective within both unionism and nationalism? Conversely, why were Orange radicals, such as Orange Young Irelander Isaac Butt, or Lindsay Crawford of the IOO, who ultimately abandoned their unionism and became nationalists, unable to bring even the smallest section of the unionist working class with them? Why, in Crawford’s own words, did Orange radicals want not “[l]abor minus Protestantism but a Protestant democracy that embraces labor”? (Nelson 1976:216). To answer this question, I turn from history to ethnography which enables us to see in finegrain the ways in which class relations within unionism have functioned.

Intersections of Class and Sectarian Identity: Ethnographic Evidence The most comprehensive ethnographic study of sectarianism is Rosemary Harris’s (1972) Prejudice and Tolerance in Ulster, based on fieldwork carried out in rural western Ulster in the late 1950s. In her introduction, Harris remarks that: attitudes and behavior are molded by very complex factors, and … it is absurd to stick a simple label, “Bigots”, on to people even when they seem most prejudiced. Such labels explain nothing: it is more difficult but much more rewarding to try with patience to understand their motives (1972: i).

The comment is no less relevant half a century later. Harris, an English Protestant, focuses on Protestant attitudes which were more readily disclosed to her than those of Catholics. Harris (1972: xii) notes that “it is a commonly accepted view that … it is the poor Protestant who is most antagonistic to the Catholics”, yet it is not the poor Protestant, but the middle-class Protestant, who is in economic competition with Catholics. Furthermore, poorer Protestants were more approving of the Orange Lodge than their more affluent co-religionists (Harris 1972: xiii). Whilst Harris (1972: xii) notes that poor hill farmer Protestants were more vulnerable to sectarian attack than more affluent lowland farmers, she also observes that it is “the hill Protestant whose day-to-day relationships with his Catholic neighbors are characterized by friendship and respect …” Harris (1972: xii) suggests that to understand why, in certain contexts, hill Protestants express strongly anti-Catholic prejudice, it is necessary to understand relations between different classes of Protestant. She observes that “the political

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problem for the poorer Protestant was that in order to secure his independence from the Irish Republic he had to support politically those whom he neither liked nor trusted” (1972:187). Poorer Protestants were “profoundly distrustful” of their leaders, both at local and national levels (1972: xii). She further notes that a significant attraction of the Orange Lodge to the poor is that its explicitly egalitarian ethos allows them to talk bluntly to their leaders: the lodge provides a context within which it is acceptable for the poor to oppose the middle class (1972: xiii). Moreover, since within the lodge, “loyalty to Protestantism is the ultimate value … all kinds of dissatisfactions with leaders can be expressed in accusations that they are insufficiently loyal to Protestantism”. As a consequence, poorer Orangemen were anxious that more prosperous Protestants should join the lodge, precisely so that they could be brought under that kind of social pressure (Harris 1972:195). Conversely, higher-status Protestants, such as a local minister, who did join the Order in the hope of influencing its behavior, were soon reminded that in the lodge room, all Brethren were equal (Harris 1972:194–5), whilst those who refused to join justified their position by condemning Orange “bigotry” (1972:194). The accusation of bigotry was in structural opposition to the accusation of lack of Protestant zeal levelled by the Orangemen against their social superiors (see Harris 1972:196). Importantly, Harris (1972:196) did not find any evidence that poorer Orangemen were actually any more “bigoted” towards Catholics in their everyday encounters than those who abjured the Order: on the contrary, it was the poorer hill farmers who tended to have the closest relations with Catholics, with whom they were compelled to share territory and cooperate in farming tasks. Harris makes one unique point: she recognizes a positive aspect to the sectarian divide in Ballybeg which is shared by all, observing that: although … within … Ballybeg there do exist deep antagonisms between the two main religious groups it is unrealistic to ignore certain social compensations brought about by this very cleavage. The division induces the intensification of social life, and brings about a situation in which each individual is of significance to his neighbors (1972: xiii).

Harris (1972: vii) points out in her introduction that Ballybeg is not Ulster, and that generalization must be approached carefully as there may be significant differences between communities with different social and economic backgrounds. Nevertheless, her detailed observations of the precise ways the dimensions of sectarian identity and class intersect in Ballybeg do shed light on some of the historical material considered above.

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The dynamics Harris (1972) uncovers can explain, for example, why successful social and economic radicalism amongst the unionist workingclass was usually accompanied by ultra-loyalism, which enabled radicals to put pressure on the ruling-class whilst protecting themselves from accusations of disloyalty to the state. At the same time, Harris’s detailed examination of the mechanisms through which the Orange lodge gave working-class unionists a voice makes it clear that the withdrawal of the middle class from Orangeism and other cultural manifestations of loyalism during the 1970s, precisely during the period that the Troubles were at their most violent and traditional industries were collapsing, was an additional blow to the Protestant working-class at the very time they were suffering from republican attacks on their neighborhoods and from rapidly rising unemployment. This middle-class distancing may be seen as part of the growing gap between, on the one hand, working-classes, which were not only being impoverished but also demonized as “underclasses” (see e.g. Jones 2011) and on the other, upwardly-mobile, increasingly cosmopolitan middle-classes: a gap which became characteristic of neo-liberal societies globally. Anthony Buckley (1983,1987) has also examined the intersection of sectarianism and class in fine detail. Buckley notes that in conflict between the social classes of the Protestant village of “Listymore”: the assertion of a loyalist identity is often crucial. In one example, a Lambeg drum, ordinarily used to assert a Protestant identity, was employed to arouse and annoy the sleeping “snooty” population of Killycarnon. More commonly it takes the form of … painted political slogans (1987:160–1).

In a paper on “Playful Rebellion”, Buckley (1983) describes how James Wallace, a Presbyterian farmer in the same area, having agreed to donate a historical farm building to a semi-official body, discomfited the “English” upper-class officials attending the opening ceremony by making a private, but ostentatiously offensive comment to his sister on the arrival of the Catholic priest.5 Buckley (1983:393) notes that: the rude remark … was, of course, a direct snub to the priest and the religion he represents, for Wallace shares in the locally common opposition to Catholicism. But since the English are notoriously ecumenical in spirit and 5

Like Harris (1972:189), Buckley (1983:390) notes that amongst Ulster Protestant and Catholic lower-classes, the term “English” was applied to anybody with an educated upper-class accent, even if they were Ulster-born, and was associated with a range of negative stereotypes.

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have a correspondingly lax attitude towards the central issues of contemporary Ulster politics, in part Wallace’s gesture should be seen as one of defiance not merely against the priest but against those who invited him.

The rude remark was one of a range of strategies Wallace deployed to make his upper-class guests uncomfortable: other techniques included having the slurry tank cleaned during the ceremony creating an overpowering stench, making spurious complaints about the brochure, and seeking to avoid participation in the official photograph. In short, sectarianism was just one weapon in Wallace’s playful class-war. Buckley’s description of this incident invites parallels with Paul Willis’s (1977) work, Learning to Labour, an ethnography of working-class schoolboys in the English midlands. Willis (1977:147–54) describes how “the lads” racism and sexism not only excluded ethnic minorities and girls from their peer-group, but formed part of a systematic rejection of the school’s value system. Here, racism and sexism, as forms of differentiation unacceptable to the middle class, play a similar role to sectarianism in Ulster. Like Wallace’s use of sectarianism (Buckley 1983:393), racism and sexism were just two weapons in a much wider repertoire of behaviors through which “the lads” created an autonomous culture and reinforced their own solidarity in opposition to the dominant bourgeois values of the education system. Willis subtitled his work, How Working-Class Kids get Working-Class Jobs and from the point of view of the teachers, the behavior of “the lads” was self-destructive. Their rejection of educational commitment and middle-class behavioral norms condemned them to an existence as marginalized as that of their parents. Willis, however, evaluates “the lads’” behavior differently. For him, “the lads” are correct in understanding that even if they apply themselves to their studies, they are most unlikely to secure middle-class jobs and that the most important resource in their post-education lives will not be school qualifications but solidarity with their peer-group (1977:126–9). Unlike the working-class Protestants studied by Harris in 1950s Ulster, who sought to use sectarianism to bond themselves to their social superiors and discipline them by inclusion within a common value system, “the lads”, in 1970s England, use racism and sexism to differentiate themselves from their social superiors and reject their value-system. Arguably, the sectarianism manifested amongst working-class loyalists in twenty-first century Northern Ireland, in which relations with middle-class unionists are distant and frequently fractious, is closer to the dynamics documented by Willis than Harris. How does such distancing work, and what purpose does it serve, then, in the neoliberal Northern Ireland of the twenty-first century?

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Respectability, Reputation and Costly Signals Every year in Northern Ireland, instances of sectarian behavior by both loyalists and nationalists are reported in the media, eliciting predictable responses of condemnation from commentators and politicians. These incidents range from terrorist attacks, now comparatively rare, to the singing of sectarian songs and display of offensive materials, still frequent and regular. In recent years, much concern has been focused on the traditional practice of lighting celebratory bonfires. Two incidents which attracted major media attention were the placing in July 2017, of an effigy of a coffin carrying the face of recently deceased republican leader, Martin McGuinness, on a loyalist bonfire in East Belfast; and the display and burning, in August 2018, of wooden panels carrying the names of policemen and prison officers murdered by republicans on a dissident republican bonfire in Derry’s Bogside. Both of these areas are deprived and segregated working-class neighborhoods. Significantly, both incidents were condemned, not only by “the other side”, but by politicians from the same ethno-religious background. Orangeman and DUP founder-member, Wallace Thompson, described the McGuinness effigy as “wrong” and added “I’d condemn it without reservation”; whilst Sinn Féin councilor, Patricia Logue, described the Bogside bonfire as a “display of hate” which “had nothing whatsoever to do with republicanism”. Nevertheless, both bonfires attracted hundreds of working-class revelers who appeared to thoroughly enjoy the proceedings. Drawing on insights from Buckley’s (1983,1987) and Willis’s (1977) work, as well as Wilson’s (1973) Caribbean ethnography, I suggest that this enjoyment was not in spite of respectable condemnation but, at least in part, because of it. Peter Wilson (1973) suggested, in his ethnography of the Caribbean island of Providencia, that there were two routes for working-class men to seek power and status: “respectability” and “reputation”. “Respectability” meant acceptance of middle-class value systems in hope of upward class-mobility and was associated with education, church attendance and women. In contrast, “reputation” held out little hope of escaping the working class, but rather was an assertion of status within a working-class milieu. Reputation was concerned with personal assertiveness, including violence, drinking, womanizing and music-making in working-class genres, and was primarily enacted through male sociability, separately from women. Although Wilson emphasized that, in practice, all men had to find a balance between respectability and reputation, for those who regard upward mobility as unrealistic, reputation offers the only path available. Wilson (1973:235) suggested the respectability/reputation dichotomy could be relevant in many

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“colonial or quasi-colonial” societies, whilst I have gone further and suggested it can be relevant in all societies structured by capitalist classrelations (Ramsey 2011:128). To develop Wilson’s schema, I suggest that the pursuit of reputation within a working-class group, in opposition to middle-class values, requires a credible commitment to that group and its values. This commitment can only be demonstrated credibly through “costly signals”.6 An example of a “costly signal” of allegiance is a gang tattoo (Fisman & Sullivan 2016). Such a tattoo sends a signal of commitment unlikely to be replicated by those who are not genuinely committed to a gang lifestyle because, particularly if located on face or neck, such tattoos carry real costs in terms of foreclosing other possible ways of life. Tattoos expressing group loyalty are popular in many working-class groups, including loyalists and nationalists in Northern Ireland, but here, I am concerned with behavior as a costly signal. Precisely because overt sectarianism of the kind demonstrated in the two bonfire incidents described above is unacceptable to the dominant classes, it provides an effective costly signal of commitment to subordinated groups, whether loyalist or republican. Those who placed the offending articles on these bonfires were seeking reputation within their peer groups precisely by their willingness to disregard bourgeois norms of behavior. Those who cheered when the bonfires were lit endorsed a communal solidarity established not only in opposition to the ethnic “other”, but also to the class “other”: the respectable, “legitimate” political parties within their own ethnic group which, despite their working-class origins, are increasingly dominated by university-educated elites.

Conclusion: Sectarianism as Class Politics Before drawing this paper to a conclusion, I should note its limitations. The paper perpetuates two long-established imbalances within the literature on sectarianism. The first is that it focuses overwhelmingly on Protestant sectarianism. Catholic sectarianism in Ulster is real, long-established and ongoing, and many examples can be found in both historical literature and

6

The concept of “costly signals” originated in evolutionary biology in order to explain morphological features which appeared to have negative value for survival, such as the peacock’s elaborate tail (Zahavi 1997). It has been adapted and applied to social theory by authors such as Hawkes (1990), Irons (2001) and Gambetta (2009).

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contemporary news reports. 7 It remains entirely unstudied, however. Sluka’s (1990) examination of support for paramilitary groups in a Catholic ghetto does not even mention sectarianism. So, it is important to bear in mind, in drawing conclusions from this paper that sectarianism in Ulster is a two-way street and that both varieties need to be explained. There is much room for further research in this area. The second imbalance is that although Intersectionality is an approach derived from academic feminism, I have focused almost entirely on male perspectives and have neglected gender in this analysis. Both Harris (1972) and Buckley (1983) offer interesting perspectives on gender and sectarianism and there is a small literature specifically focusing on the gendered aspects of conflict and peace in Northern Ireland (e.g. Fairweather et al 1984; Loughran 1986; Aretxaga 1997; González 2018). This area also offers potentially fruitful avenues for further research: there is no question that a consideration of the gender dimension would enrich this intersectional approach and might transform it. Bearing in mind these limitations to this work, what have we learned? Marx famously proclaimed “workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!” The workers of Northern Ireland, however, have stubbornly refused so to do. Why then, if those attending both loyalist and republican bonfires do so in defiance of the dominant class, do they not unite against that class under the banner of socialism, as Marxists from Connolly onward have called for? The most obvious answer is that loyalist and nationalist working-classes really do have different histories and identities, and that in recent decades much of the suffering of each community has been directly inflicted by the other. This answer merely pushes the question back, however. Why were the Troubles fought over sectarian rather than class divisions? A second factor may be the difficulties that the Left more widely has suffered during the neoliberal era within which traditional structures of workplace solidarity and trade-union activism have been disrupted by casual and fragmented labor practices and by legal constraints. But as the historical exploration above showed, many of these dynamics long predate neoliberalism.

7

As I write, a sectarian attack on a bus carrying Protestant schoolchildren in north Belfast, about a mile from my house, is being reported (Sept 27, 2018). https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/belfast-news/north-belfast-bus-carryingschoolchildren-15201678 Such incidents are not uncommon.

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I suggest two more fundamental factors. Firstly, working-class people tend to treat all universalist ideologies, including both liberalism and socialism, with considerable skepticism, because they are well aware that they do not have the time or resources to save the world, or even the workers of the world, and prefer to focus on saving those on whom they know they can depend. This is particularly the case when the universalist ideologies in question are being promoted by middle-class politicians or ideologues whose genuine commitments to any working-class community are suspect. The dimension of time is one which is often overlooked. It is only those with sufficient resources to be unconcerned about where their next meal will come from who have the leisure to prioritize long-term major social transformations as political objectives. For working-class people, survival in the short-term is paramount, since short-term failure will result in the foreclosure of any long-term future. Sectarian solidarity can facilitate shortterm survival through its role in social support. I have already noted the role of the Orange Order in social support, and Joanna Felo (2013) has pointed out that during the 1970s, only 10% of members of the loyalist paramilitary Ulster Defence Association (UDA) in Belfast’s Highfield estate were actively involved in armed conflict; the remaining 90% being employed in welfare activities ranging from running mother and toddler groups, children’s outings and pensioners’ lunches to operating a community center, youth club, boxing club and social club.8 Today, loyalist flute-bands are increasingly being called upon to play “charity gigs” as economic austerity policies bite. Such events, sometimes staged to raise funds for local community organizations, sometimes for individual families suffering hardship and sickness, are often overtly sectarian in tone. I suggest that this is because when asking those who have little to give to those in even greater need it is vital to establish a common identity and an expectation of reciprocity, should it be needed. The expression of strident loyalism achieves this aim in a convincing way that a universalist liberalism or socialism could not. Such events are a reminder of Harris’s (1972: xiii) observation that the sectarian boundary in Ballybeg intensified social life on both sides of the divide. Marx was wrong: firstly, the workers of the world have a great deal to lose besides their chains, including their lives, their livelihoods, their families and the relationships that make their lives worth living. It is little wonder, then, that they are generally prepared to use whatever practical and 8 Felo also noted that several UDA members in Highfield were trade unionists and/or former members of the NILP.

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ideological means are available to defend what they have, rather than to pursue a revolution with unknown consequences which they would likely lack the resources to withstand. Constraints of time and resources can explain not only why Orange workers wanted “a Protestant democracy that embraces labor” (Nelson 1976:216) rather than a working-class revolution, but why the labor movement in Great Britain for most of its history was defensive and “conservative” in outlook (Marquand 1991:21–2,69–70), and why working-class voters in Great Britain voted Labour because “they saw socialism as the means through which a conservative society might come into being . . . they wanted everything to be different, in order that it could stay the same” (Marquand 1991:71). Secondly, in identifying those on whom they can depend—crucial given their limited resources —working-class people rely on costly signals of commitment. There was a time when socialist discourses could serve as such a costly signal. When radical Orangemen a century ago, such as Johnston, de Cobain and Crawford, openly used a Marxist-inflected language of class conflict to confront the elite, they were demonstrating their distance from that elite who found such discourses horrifying (McClelland 1990:92). Current left-wing discourses are no longer effective as costly signals, however, because since the 1960s, they have been adopted by many of the privileged classes who benefit from working-class marginalization (Rockey 2009). Indeed, in contemporary Western social science and humanities university departments, it can be difficult to find anybody, student or staff, who does not place themselves on the left of the political spectrum. The adoption of left-wing political discourses by large sections of the elite whose interests are very different from those of the working classes (Rockey 2009:2,12) 9 effectively deprives the working classes of their use because, as signals of solidarity, they are now cost-free: authentic commitment to lower-class groups cannot be demonstrated through discourses which are being regularly articulated by privileged 9

Rockey (2009:12) notes that higher income is correlated with increased selfperception as “right-wing” whereas higher education is correlated with increased self-perception as “left-wing”. Both the highly affluent and the highly educated, however, favor policies which increase inequality. The division between affluent (right) and educated (left) fragments of the dominant class can be correlated with Bourdieu’s (1981:92,452) distinction between the dominant fragment of the dominant class, possessed of economic capital and the dominated fragment of the dominant class, possessed of cultural capital. Bourdieu (1981:451) also remarked upon the tendency of the latter, in the French context, to confuse “the Left Bank” with “the Left Wing”.

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professors in prestigious universities. In order to find effective costly signals of solidarity, working-class people must adopt discourses unacceptable to the elite. In Northern Ireland, these are most commonly the discourses of sectarianism. The understanding that creating reliable working-class solidarities in specific contexts requires credible distance from universalist establishment discourses of liberalism (and neo-liberalism), secularism or socialism is a tool that might, perhaps, be deployed far beyond Northern Ireland to understand movements ranging from Islamism and ultra-Zionism in the Middle East to Trumpism in the USA, and from Hindu nationalism in India to populist right movements in Europe. It remains to be seen how workingclass groups in different contexts will respond to the co-option of such communalist discourses of resistance by new elite figures, such as Donald Trump in the USA; Narendra Modi in India; Recep Erdo÷an in Turkey; Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel or Victor Orbán in Hungary. The consequences are likely to depend on local dynamics and global economic developments, and on the success or failure of these figures in delivering on their promises in these contexts. In Northern Ireland, the future is equally uncertain following Brexit, which has thrown both the economic and constitutional position of the province into doubt. What is certain, in such times of uncertaintly, is that sectarian solidarity, as a proven social resource, is likely to become more, rather than less important, for those who have few other resources.

Bibliography Aretxaga, Begoña. 1997. Shattering Silence: Women, Nationalism and Political Subjectivity in Northern Ireland. Princeton Univ.: Princeton NJ. Beale, Frances. 1969. “Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female”. In Morgan, Robin (ed) Sisterhood is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings from the Women’s Liberation Movement. Random House: New York. Belfast Telegraph. 2018. “DUP Mans TV Claim Attack on Catholic’s House not Sectarian while Camera Pans Past Sectarian Graffiti was Bid to DeEscalate Situation”. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/dup-manstv-claim-attack-on-catholics-house-not-sectarian-while-camera-panspast-sectarian-graffiti-was-bid-to-deescalate-situation-37171062.html Bew, Paul, Peter Gibbon & Henry Patterson. 1980. “Some Aspects of Nationalism and Socialism in Ireland: 1968–78”. In Morgan, Austin &

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Bob Purdie (eds.) Ireland: Divided Nation, Divided Class. Ink Links: London. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Polity: Cambridge. Brewer, John. 1992. “Sectarianism and Racism: Their Parallels and Differences”. Ethnic and Racial Studies 15(3). Bores, Anders. 1972. “Contradictions and Struggles in Northern Ireland”. Socialist Register. British and Irish Communist Organisation (BICO). 1971: The Two Irish Nations. BICO: Belfast. —. 1971. On the Democratic Validity of the Northern Ireland State. BICO: Belfast. —. 1972a. The Economics of Partition BICO: Belfast. —. 1972b. 1972. The Home Rule Crisis 1912-14. BICO: Belfast. —. 1973. Ulster as it Is: A Review of the Development of the Catholic/Protestant Political Conflict in Belfast between Catholic Emancipation and the Home Rule Bill. BICO: Belfast. —. 1974. The Road to Partition. BICO: Belfast. —. 1975. Imperialism. BICO: Belfast. —. 1977. Against Ulster Nationalism. BICO: Belfast. Bryan, Dominic. 2000. Orange Parades: The Politics of Ritual, Tradition and Control. Pluto: London. Buckley, Anthony. 1983. “Playful Rebellion: Social Control and the Framing of Experience in an Ulster Community”. Man. New Series 18(2). —. 1987. “Bad Boys and Little Old Ladies”: Youth and Age in Two Ulster Villages”. Ethnologia Europaea 17(2). Carr, Alan 1974. The Belfast Labour Movement 1885–1893. Athol: Belfast. Campbell, Gregory. 2018. “SF Anti-Sectarianism Strategy Just a Photocall”. DUP Official Website. http://www.mydup.com/news/article/sf-anti-sectarianism-strategy-justa-photo-call-campbell Connolly, James. 1948. Socialism and Nationalism: A Selection from the Writings of James Connolly. Sign of the Three Candles: Dublin. Connolly, Paul. 2002. Race and Racism in Northern Ireland: A Review of the Research Evidence. OFDFM: Belfast. Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 1989. Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum 1. Elliott, Marianne. 2000. The Catholics of Ulster. Basic: New York.

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Fairweather, Eileen, Roisín McDonough & Melanie McFadyean. 1984. Only the Rivers Run Free: Northern Ireland, The Women’s War. Pluto: London. Farrell, Michael. 1976. The Orange State. Pluto: London. Felo, Joanna. 2013. “Everyone can Help: Social Service Provision by the Ulster Defence Association: 1971–1988”. PhD thesis. Belfast. Queen’s University. Fisman, Ray & Tim Sullivan. 2016. The Inner Lives of Markets: How People Shape Them and They Shape Us. Public Affairs: New York. Foster, Roy. 1989. Modern Ireland: 1600–1972. Penguin: Harmondsworth. Gambetta, Diego. 2009. Codes of the Underworld: How Criminals Communicate. Princeton Univ.: Princeton NJ. Garner, Steve. 2010. Racisms: An Introduction. SAGE: Thousand Oaks CA. Gilligan, Chris. 2017. Northern Ireland and the Crisis of Anti-Racism: Rethinking Racism and Sectarianism. Manchester University: Manchester. Geoghegan, Peter. 2010. A Difficult Difference: Race, Religion and the New Northern Ireland. Irish Academic: Dundrum. González, Andrea. 2018. “Women on the Peaceline: Challenging Divisions through the Space of Friendship”. In Komarova, Milena & Maruska Svasek (eds) Ethnographies of Movement, Sociality and Space: PlaceMaking in the New Northern Ireland. Berghahn: New York. Haddick-Flynn, Kevin. 1999. Orangeism: The Making of a Tradition. Merlin: Decatur GA. Harris, Rosemary. 1972. Prejudice and Tolerance in Ulster: Neighbours and Strangers in a Border Community. Manchester Univ.: Manchester. Hastings, Gary. 2003. With Fife and Drum: Music, Memories and Customs of an Irish Tradition. Blackstaff: Belfast. Hawkes, Kristen. 1993. “Why Do Men Hunt? Some Benefits for Risky Choices”. Current Anthropology 34. Irish Inter-Church Meeting. 1993. The Report of the Working-Party on Sectarianism. Irish Inter-Church Meeting: Belfast. Irons, William. 2001. “Religion as a Hard-to-Fake Sign of Commitment”. In Nesse, Randolph (ed.) Evolution and the Capacity for Commitment. Russell Sage: New York. Jackson, T.A. 1946. Ireland Her Own: An Outline History of the Irish Struggle for National Freedom and Independence. Cobbett: London. Jess, Mervyn. 2007. The Orange Order. O’Brien: Dublin. Jordan, Glenn. 2001. Not of This World? Evangelical Protestants in Northern Ireland. Blackstaff: Belfast.

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Larsen 1982. “The Two Sides of the House: Identity and Social Organisation in Kilbroney, Northern Ireland”. In Cohen, Anthony (ed.) Belonging: Identity and Social Organisation in British Rural Cultures. Manchester Univ.: Manchester. Leyton 1974. “Opposition and Integration in Ulster”. Man 9(2). Liechty, Joseph & Cecilia Clegg. 2001. Moving Beyond Sectarianism. Columba: Blackrock. Loughran, Christina. 1986. “Armagh and Feminist Strategy: Campaigns Around Republican Women Prisoners in Armagh Jail”. Feminist Review 23(1). Marquand, David. 1991. The Progressive Dilemma. Heinemann: London. McAuley 1991. “Cuchullain and an RPG-7: The Ideology and Politics of the Ulster Defence Association”. In Hughes, Eamon (ed.) Culture and Politics in Northern Ireland, 1960–1990. Open University: London. McCall, Leslie. 2005. “The Complexity of Intersectionality”. Signs 30(3). McCann, Eamon. 1974. War and an Irish Town. Pluto: London. McClelland, Aiken. 1990. William Johnston of Ballykilbeg. Ulster Society: Lurgan. McFarlane, Graham. 1986. “‘It’s Not as Simple as That’: The Expression of the Catholic and Protestant Boundary in Northern Irish Rural Communities”. In Cohen, Anthony (ed.) Symbolising Boundaries: Identity and Diversity in British Cultures. Manchester Univ.: Manchester. McGarry, John & Brendan O’Leary. 1995. Explaining Northern Ireland: Broken Images. Blackwell: Oxford. McKee, Eamonn. 1986. “Church-State Relations and the Development of Irish Health Policy: The Mother-and-Child Scheme, 1944-53”. Irish Historical Studies. 25 (98):159–194. McKittrick, David, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney, Chris Thornton & David McVea. 1999. Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children Who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles. Mainstream: Edinburgh. McVeigh, Robbie. 1998. “Is Sectarianism Racism? The Implications of Sectarian Division for Multi-Ethnicity in Ireland”. In Lentin, R. (ed) The Expanding Nation: Towards a Multi-Ethnic Ireland. Trinity College: Dublin. … 2014. Sectarianism in Northern Ireland: Towards a Definition in Law. Equality Coalition: Belfast. Mogey, 1957. “Social Relations in Rural Society”. In Moody, T.W. & J.C. Beckett (eds) Ulster Since 1800. BBC: Londonz.

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Morgan, Austen. 1978. Politics, the Labour Movement and the WorkingClass in Belfast 1905–1923. Phd Thesis: Queen’s University: Belfast. Nelson, Sarah. 1976. “Developments in Protestant Working-Class Politics”. Social Studies: Irish Journal of Sociology 3–4(5). Patterson, Henry. 1980. Class Conflict and Sectarianism: The Protestant Working-Class and the Belfast Labour Movement 1868–1920. Blackstaff: Belfast. Ramsey, Gordon. 2011. Music, Emotion and Identity in Ulster Marching Bands: Flutes, Drums and Loyal Sons. Peter Lang: Oxford. Rockey, James. 2009. “Who is Left Wing and Who Just Thinks They Are? Working Paper 09/23. University of Leicester, Dept. of Economics. Accessed 30/09/18. https://www.le.ac.uk/ec/research/RePEc/lec/leecon/dp09-23.pdf Tonge, Jonathan, Maire Braniff, Thomas Hennessey, James McAuley & Sophie Whiting. 2014. The Democratic Unionist Party: From Protest to Power. Oxford Univ.: Oxford. Van der Straeten, Serge and Philippe Daufouy. 1972. “La ContreRévolution Irlandaise”. Les Temps Modernes 311. English translation by Ruth Nybakken and Lorraine Perlman available at: https://libcom.org/library/counter-revolution-ireland-serge-van-derstraeten-philippe-daufouy Walker, Graham. 2008. “The Protestant Working-Class and the Fragmentation of Ulster Unionism”. In Busteed, Mervyn (ed.) Irish Protestant Identities. Manchester Univ.: Manchester. Whyte, John. 1990. Interpreting Northern Ireland. Clarendon: Oxford. Willis, Paul. 1977. Learning to Labour: How Working Class Kids get Working Class Jobs. Saxon House: Farnborough. Winter, Jay. 1977. “Britain’s `Lost Generation’ of the First World War”. Population Studies, 31(3):449–466.

SECTARIANISM AND SUPREMACISM DR. ABRAHAM WEIZFELD PHD. UNIVERSITÉ DU QUÉBEC À MONTRÉAL

What a tangled web is woven when we talk of self-determination, sectarianism and self-identity. Won’t we ever see through the knot of selfinterest, national self-determination and the “self”, in the context of the “non-self”? What has led us down this path of “self” this and that, until none are safe from this or that “self”? No wonder the word selfish was invented to describe the accumulation of self-interest. The historical weight of selfinterest has burdened humanity with endless wars—even though we can see some light at the end of the historic tunnel with the decline in international savagery since the Second European World War was finally concluded. And yet, the feeble attempts to impose some semblance of peace are seen to be being reversed in the attempts at cooperation through the Confederation of the European Union, or in the hysteria to be found in the most powerful state in the entirety of human history, the United States of America. While technology advances under the scientific umbrella, the social actuality lags behind, weighted down by the prejudice and power of controlling interests. Let us return to what is the essence of the matter—to find the nature of sectarianism—and the fascination it holds for disparate sources, each of which is quite sure of its reason and intent. Much has been made of the discussion in the context of the Canadian province named Québec, about what is sectarianism and what solution is to be found in secularism. The nationalist populist mentality defines secularism as a State policy that limits Oriental cultural freedoms in the name of Occidental Christian cultural identity! And for that matter, the great debate about what is to be considered secularism in the first place is revealed. The liberal notion is exposed as merely the France paradigm of mutual tolerance without recognition for national minorities but rather equity for Christian sects alone. The binary polarization presented by such cases is necessarily rooted in the methods utilized in order to perpetuate the particular interest that seeks to

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entrench such interests which are maintained by the dominant economic factor in any social equation. The first target of domination is, of course, the definition of that which maintains that power. As such, we should examine the definition to detour around the source of power, if ever the existing power one day yields to the forces that arise to arrest the process of self-destruction by way of the mentality of self-interest. The way to see through the knots of social existence is to realize the ambiguities they present. For example, the opposite of sectarianism is not secularism, because of the ambiguity contained therein. One is obliged to look for the negation of sectarianism, which is reciprocity. The double meaning of secularism is the handicap here, and it is a term that will mean either the absence, suppression or ignorance of religious and ideological exclusivism, or the tolerance and accommodation of all such tendencies as a matter of freedom of speech and expression.

Self-determination and Auto-determination The major issue of the last 70 years is here presented by Chaim Herzog at the United Nations General Assembly in response to the resolution that the ideology of Zionism is a form of Racism; The re-establishment of Jewish independence in Israel, after centuries of struggle to overcome foreign conquest and exile, is a vindication of the fundamental concepts of the equality of nations and of self-determination. To question the Jewish People’s right to national existence and freedom is not only to deny to the Jewish people the right accorded to every other people on this globe, but it is also to deny the central precepts of the United Nations.1

In the first instance, such a claim as being in the name of the Jewish People is open to scrutiny, considering that the Zionist movement did not have the legitimate consent of the People on behalf of which it claimed to be expressing itself. While the Zionist ideology was the hegemonic expression of the bourgeois class amongst the Jewish People internationally, the great

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Chaim Herzog, Israeli Ambassador Chaim Herzog response to Zionism is Racism resolution, United Nations General Assembly, 1975, http://www.zionism-israel.com/hdoc/Herzog_Zionism_1975.htm

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bulk of workers and refugees did not hold the same perspective of building a State at all costs as an expression of national self-determination. In the second instance, but of even greater significance, is sectarian insistence upon self-determination as an absolute principle even though it was claimed in opposition to the very same claim made by the indigenous Palestinian Nation struggling against the British colonial occupation, begun in 1917 by General Allenby in his campaign to complete the goals of the Christian Crusade by entering as the victorious champion into Jerusalem. To claim the right to self-determination while denying that very same right to the indigenous population is obviously self-contradictory. It is not that the two rights were necessarily contradictory, since the two national struggles could have been conducted conjointly against the common occupier, but rather it was an ideological choice to exclude the “other”, Palestinian claim, for self-determination in favor of an absolute claim on behalf of one Nation alone. The exclusionary nature of the Zionist claim to self-determination is rooted in the presumed need for sovereignty of the State rather than the actual selfdetermination of a People per se. The State becomes a substitute for the People by way of the class interest which seeks to take control of the economy, fostered by the State which takes possession of the territory for the purpose of monopolization of the space and resources for the benefit of the private interests which maintain control of the State by means of a mechanism of economic determinism. The Liberal predisposition to such a claim to sovereignty is another example of the faulty binary logic dichotomy, which creates an impossibility by means of an ideological presumption. In this instance, the problem lies in the hegemonic nature of the State which presumes that a given territory may only give rise to one Nation with one common language, one common theological construction, one unified economy, one single political authority and one particular leader. The logical conclusion to such logic became the Nazi regime. In the Oriental perspective, there is no such presumption, since these ancient societies have generated multi-national social formations over an extended period which co-exist in various formats other than a hegemonic State in the European sense of the Nation-State. In the European context, this Oriental component of Civil Society was introduced by the Jewish Bundist movement, which developed the concept of National-Cultural Autonomy as

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a Constitutional principle. This concept allows for the co-existence of various national formations in the same context by way of their reciprocal autonomy rather than independent sovereignty. The abandonment of the hegemonic operative allows for the mutual recognition and respect necessary for social co-existence. Such autonomy allows for the particular social attributes of language, religion, selfgovernment, judiciary, security and economy. The convergence of various autonomies in the common social context gives rise to a Federation rather than a State. In the inter-national, geo-political context, this is expressed as the Federation of Federations and in the local context as the Federal Council composed of each Autonomy working to achieve mutual aid.

Liberal secularism The State in the Occidental context has sought to overcome the sectarian tendency oftentimes expressed as the theological imperative. As in the case of the civil war in France between the Christian factions of Catholicism and Protestantism (Huguenots), the constitutional provision of secularism provides for the neutrality of the State in respect of the Christian doctrines of Catholicism and Protestantism. However, the State itself remained Christian to accommodate both doctrines at the same time. While the subsequent concept of secularism has been extrapolated to mean the State’s neutrality in respect of all religious tendencies, in practice the State has reverted to its theological foundation of Christianity. The current provisions in law to discriminate against the kippa (skullcap/kapple), hijab (hair covering) and the nikab (veil) as well as the burkini demonstrate the continuing sectarianism towards both Oriental religious traditions of Judaism and Islam. The incident of the two policemen confronting a Muslim woman wearing her swimming clothes, burkini, is illustrative of the State’s character and imposition.

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The hypocrisy of the State becomes evident in a historical perspective when it was illegal for women’s swimwear to be shorter than mid-thigh length, corresponding to the Christian values at the time.

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Another case example is the insistence by three major parties of the Québec National Assembly in Canada to retain the Catholic crucifix above the seat of the President of the Assembly. In this particular context, it is Catholicism that is favored, even while secularism is proclaimed as official policy. This crucifix was subsequently quietly removed, even though the Catholic flag of the bleeding heart is retained as the provincial flag, but without the bleeding heart and maintaining the white crucifix.

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The Québec Bouchard-Taylor Commission unsuccessfully delved into the question of Reasonable Accommodations, to determine what is considered to be secularism in the light of cultural heritage. The confusion between the Francophone character of the region of Québec and its Catholic cultural history is predominant. The crucifix was initially installed during the Duplessis era of the 1950s, when the province had a Catholic theological character during what has since been termed the “grande noirceur” or “great darkness”. The Quiet Revolution that brought the renaissance to Québec did not overcome the theocratic state attributes, despite the generalized lack of attendance in Churches since that time. This retention of a theological definition of the national character of the Québécois people (Kébékois, as in the indigenous language pronunciation) is the consequence of the colonial conversion of the indigenous Nations to Catholicism by the French colonialists, who became obliged to marry with the indigenous women when immigration from France was ended by the British colonial administration. By historical coincidence, then, the Catholicism of the occupied Québécois Nation became integral to the national identity as opposed to the Protestantism brought by the British occupation. Even the Québec public Francophone school system was Catholic until some twenty years ago, which necessarily created a divide between the Francophone and Anglophone communities, leaving the Jewish community, for example, to be isolated in the Anglophone culture. The example of Québec is similar to the other occident nation-states that root national identity in the theology of the given social construct.

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The Reformation brought independence by way of Lutheranism, much like the democratic national revolution in England, which identified as Anglicanism, or the Calvinism of Holland. As such, the German Jewish community was isolated and eliminated in spite of its assimilated Germanophile mentality, codified as the Reform Synagogue movement. The logical consequence of the occidental nation-state was the Holocaust, the ultimate sectarianism. If one were to consider the initial expression of the First Crusade originating in France and motivated by Pope Urban II, the pattern of domestic sectarianism became a geopolitical concern that sought to occupy Oriental countries for either ideological theocratic reasons, or for the modern expression of neo-imperialist resource extraction. The most recent Crusade began in 1991 with the occupation of Iraq under pretext of a humanitarian campaign, evoking a Christian moral imperative. It is notable that the occupation of Jerusalem in 1917 by the British General Allenby was made with his proclamation that this occupation was the last Crusade, followed by the affirmation by US President Trump that the US Embassy was to be placed in the US recognized capital of the Zionist State of Israel, that being Jerusalem, on the 100th anniversary of the original affirmation in 1917. Needless to say, the British policy was in line with the nature of the State, symbolized by the monarchy which also holds the title of the Head of the Church of England and the Empire, later termed the Commonwealth for the sake of public relations.

Nassarism and Pan-Arabism The revolutionary content of Egyptian President Adbul Nasser in terms of the Pan-Arabic unity campaign is that here was a proclamation that defined the Arab Nations in terms of socio-political identity, and not a theocratic one. The Islamic Ummah of Inter-National unity, based on a common belief in the writings describing the thought of Mohammad the Prophet in the Koran, remained a philosophical and not a political determinant. The common plight of the Arab Nations, submitted to the Sykes-Picot Treaty and its construction of Occidental inspired nation-states upon the polynational civil societies of the Orient, is the conceptual hinge upon which the national liberation movements were founded. The concept that Arab societies were to be united by a common historical and social environment, and not by either a theocratic criterion or the imposed frontiers of England and France, was an intolerable affront to the

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once great powers. In 1956, the proxy war waged by the military forces of the State of Israel, Britain and France to retake the nationalized Suez Canal failed under the objection of the USA whose interests were disregarded. The common front with which the Zionist State participated indicates the source of its political inspiration and methodology with which that State was founded. The exclusion of the indigenous Palestinian population corresponded to the Occidental model of nation-building that considers a state to be a national formation in spite any national minorities that happen to reside within. The Pan-Arabist concept, though, did not discriminate between particular Arab Nations, either distinct or co-habiting with the common civil society, without consideration for any theological divisions, such as Sunni-Shiya. Even while the Islamic Ummah made a common bond between the various national formations that adopted the religious identity and so overcame the nationalist divisions fostered by the Occident, the theocratic criterion was not sufficient to provide for social unity. However, the Pan-Arabism was not fully developed to overcome the major divisions of theocratic orientation that exists in the Oriental context. In particular, the term Arab, used in the context of Palestine or for that matter the State of Israel, is not inclusive of the Jewish Arab population, the Mizrahim or the Sephardim. Usually the number of Arabs counted in the two contexts is made to correspond to the predominantly Islamic identity rather than an Arab one, so that the figure of 6–7 million is given for the Arab population of Palestine-Israel even while there is an Arab population of 10 million, which includes the 3 million Jewish Arabs originating from the Maghreb North African societies. Thus, the term Arab is used as a synonym for Palestinian in the effort to negate the Palestinian identity, fostering an Orientalist prejudice against the Palestinian Nation or to provide for a sectarian definition of Arab that excludes the Jewish Arab population due to their Zionist orientation. The identity of the Jewish Arabs with the State of Israel follows from the historic Islamic sectarian differentiation in the Arab societies when, in the Ottoman Empire, “Dhimmi” status was imposed on national minorities who paid a tax for the protection of the Califah state while being barred from military training. Such a designation is still in effect by the current Palestinian political culture, which excludes the Jewish Arabs from the Pan-Arabic perspective. The objective actuality of a two-tiered struggle against the subordination of the Oriental Arabic Nations to the occidental power manipulations and colonization is the missing link that would provide the critical mass to

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overturn the hegemonic Zionist State that seeks to impose a nation-state in the name of the Jewish people. The initial program of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1969 for a Democratic Secular Palestine should have taken such a strategy into consideration, but has remained a nationalist Palestinian movement alone and has not adopted an international Pan-Arabist position to complement the nationalist motivation for the liberation of the Palestinian nation. The program adopted, in effect, seeks to establish a nation-state of its own but in harmony with a minoritarian Israeli Jewish population. The prospect of such a constitutional mechanism is doubtful, since it would introduce a reaction on the part of the Jewish-Israeli nation to oppose such an alternative at the present time. This original program is now adopted again by the One-State Group as an alternative to the failed Two-State Solution proposed by the Oslo Interim Agreement of 1993. The impediment to the two-tiered strategy of seeking the liberation of the Palestinian nation alongside the liberation of the Arab population in both its manifestations of Palestinians and Jewish Mizrahim, is a consequence of the definition imposed by the Islamic ideology which defines the Palestinian national by a theocratic criterion. The inclusion of Christian Palestinians is natural for Islamism, which adapts the Christian deification of Jehoshua Ben Yousef to become a Muslim prophet. The Pan-Arabism of the PLO is limited to established Arabic Nation-States formed into the Arab League, without consideration of the minority Arabic national formation in each of those States (Bedouin, Nabatian, Mizrahim, Sepharad) or, for that matter, the minorities that cohabit those States, such as the Kurdish Nation, Jewish Israeli, Berber, and Tuareg of Libya. Such minorities are often exploited to become opposition forces in various campaigns to overthrow any governments that resist Occidental control, such as occurred in Libya. The exclusivist nature of the Nation-States, constructed initially by the Sykes-Picot Treaty of Britain and France, continues in a neo-colonial paradigm that ignores the Oriental precedents for Inter-National civil societies.

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Judaic sectarian interpretations Hierarchical Notions On the matter of territory, there exists a confusion between two aspects that only appear to be similar; that is, the Nation as a territory and territory as a Nation. This is the typical quandary that strikes at the clarity of the discussion of the nation. The coincidence of a Nation and a particular territory is only a matter of chance and is not a defining characteristic of a given nation or of the Nation in general. It should also be taken into consideration that neither does a Nation remain confined and defined by a territory, and nor does a territory define its occupants as a Nation. The identity of the Nation with a particular territory is in contradiction to the existence of the Nation since, as a People, it can never remain confined to a particular location. In effect, a Nation cannot be presumed to be defined by association with a particular territory as if property were the defining characteristic of its natural identity. A territory does not make a Nation. It is, rather, a matter of self-conception, and the image of the self in some manifestation of the Nation that is crucial. Whether that be a territory or not is secondary and should not take precedence over the nature of the Nation itself. The consideration given to the territory as a fundamental criterion often leads to the confusion between its aspects. It may be stated that territory is one means by which a Nation forms its societal environment, even though society itself is not subordinate to territory. The resulting inversion between a social context and a territory is the result, as in Gellner. It is, rather, the economy that is directly linked to a given territorial site in most cases, especially in agricultural societies. The distinction between Nation and territory is based on the choice of methodology; the materialism of economic determinism or a multi-faceted problematic. It is necessary to bring the concept of Nation out of the hierarchical schemas in order to reveal its actual nature. That distinction, with respect to territory, provides the basis for the conception of the Nation as a People, rather than some materialist fetish. The primordial conception of the Nation is based in the collective self-identity of the People who form a distinct culture, having a particular historical experience and origin, who wish to form a civil society to maintain such an historical acquisition in perpetuity. This is the very conception brought forward by Maimonides…, as Ahad Ha’am presents the matter:

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Typically, the national image is represented as a symbolic representation of the monarchy, or the deity. This is what is termed the Head of State. The raison d’être for a nation in the image of a monarchy arises from the statist self-conception as a garrison against non-nationals, and having as its intention the enlargement of its domain, while taking the form of a Nation. This is parallel to the Nietzschean and Hellenic-Spartan conception of “actual man” in relation to an alienated society, rather than the organic conception of Maimonides.3 4 It is explicitly written that; 6 [Saying:] “I, even I, have installed my king Upon Zion, my holy mountain.” 7 Let me refer to the decree of Jehovah; He has said to me: “You are my son; I, today, I have become your father. 8 Ask of me, that I may give nations as your inheritance And the ends of the earth as your possession. 9 You will break them with an iron scepter, As though a potter’s vessel

 2

Ahad Ha ‘am, “The Supremacy of Reason”, pp. 228–288, Nationalism and the Jewish Ethic, New York, Schocken Books, 1962, pp. 234, 246. 3 Ahad Ha’am, “The Supremacy of Reason”, pp. 228–288, Ibid, p. 247. 4 25. Nietzsche’s Ubermensch relates to civil society as the state does, as a tool, while Maimonides has a symbiotic relation, which nurtures civil society as the Petri dish for Prophets. The astonishing amalgam of the two, despite their contradictions, presents the basis for the Zionist fundamentalist current, which presently comprise a body of 10,000 declared sympathizers in the IDF (Israel Defence Force V-147, 581).

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you will dash them to pieces.”5

The competitive motivation of empire is inherent to the exclusivism of nationalism, as in the Nietzschean extrapolation of the ubermensch to the nation-state itself.6 The historical rationale utilized by the ideology of the paternalistic monarchy is used to validate that exclusivism. In consequence, it is territory as an imperium that is the heritage of the monarchist principle, but not of the Nation. In the absence of productive means, in terms of resource or technique, a nation may fall into the practice of taking the strengths of others (plunder or slaves) in substitution for that which is lacking in their political economy, and in place of the research necessary to discover such means for themselves. To institute this consequential hierarchy all that is necessary is the belief that the needs of oneself, and of one’s own nation, are a priority beyond the needs of other nations; that is to say, other nations are considered inferior in respect to certain criteria, and needs are based on some attribute/quality associated with the dominant nation. The primordial origins of the nation found in the common socioeconomic conditions of a people are found as a theme in various contexts. In the commentary of Harold Bloom, he refers to the Hebrews or Hairu of 2000 BCE as, “wanderers or semi-nomads, perhaps more a social caste than an ethnic unity”.7 In the same fashion, the ancient Hebrew code also imposed a hierarchy based on social caste: “And now you are cursed people, and a slave’s position and being gatherers of wood and drawers of water for the house of my G-d, will never be cut off from you”.8 The Hivites were not considered to be of the same society, even while being residents of the same territory, because they were not of the same Nation, since the Land is being equated to the nation, exclusively. The discriminatory exclusive feature of nationalism is implemented or perpetuated as a social caste. With the subsequent integration of the “foreign” caste into an economic order, we have the formation of class divisions along predominantly national

 5

New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, Brooklyn, Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society of Pennsylvania, 1961, “Psalms”, (Book One) 2: 6–7, p. 628, and the Bible, op. cit., “Psalms”, (Book One) 002:006–7. 6 Ahad Ha’am, “The Transvaluation of Values”, pp. 165–187, op. cit., p. 175. 7 Harold Bloom, Ibid., p. 193. 8 Holy Scriptures, op. cit., “Joshua”, 9: 23, p. 264, and, The Bible, op. cit., “Joshua”, 009:023.

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cleavages. In modern civil society, immigrants, and their subsequent national minorities, form a supplementary Order in all classes, even though not in all class strata. The nascent theocratic order and monarchist/Pharaonic principle is inherent in the citation above, in effect, “the house of my G-d”. This precursor of the state is founded in the exclusivist tendency of nationalism. In other cases, exclusivity is expressed as outright annihilation. Being ingrained in the historical memory, national castes remained an accepted feature. 44 As for your slave man and your slave girl who become yours from the nations that are round about YOU people, from them YOU may buy a slave man and a slave girl. 45 And also from the sons of these settlers who are residing as aliens with YOU, from them YOU may buy, and from their families that are with YOU whom they had born to them in YOUR land; and they must become YOUR possession. 46 And YOU must pass them on as an inheritance to YOUR sons after YOU to inherit as a possession to time indefinite. You may use them as workers, but up on YOUR brothers the sons of Israel, you must not tread, the one up on the other, with tyranny.9

This conception becomes ingrained as the mechanism for the formation of subordinated classes as a consequence of becoming a captive nation; the passage following serving to promote such an imperative; And gradually he gave them the lands of the nations, And they kept taking possession of the product of the hard work of national groups.10

The aspirations of a national culture for self-sufficiency may thus be translated as a discriminatory feature, if this self-sufficiency is conceived of as a thing in itself. By such means, a national culture is equated with society at large, as if there were no other nations in that environment. That would

 9

Holy Scriptures, op. cit., “Leviticus” , 25:44–46 , p. 154, and, The Bible, op. cit., “Leviticus”, 025: 044–6. 10 Holy Scriptures, op. cit., “Psalms”, 105:44, p. 701, and, The Bible, op. cit., “Psalm”, 105:044.

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be the nascent conception of a state and its corresponding ideology of homogeneity. Those nations that live under such a centralized authority without those collective social rights that are granted to recognized members of the society, are disfavored because they are not of the same nation that has established the national authority. This Authority has the function of guarding the priority of a founding nation in the chosen territory, by all necessary means. 11 However, the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel and said: “No, but a king is what will come to be over us. And we must become, we also, like all the nations, and our king must judge us and go out before us and fight our battles”.12

With the conception of a monarchy, the society conditioned within that structure reflects the same image of domination and separation: And you must be very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the Law of Moses by never turning away from it to the right or to the left, by never going in among the nations, those that remain with you.13

and formally, “And for your part, you must not conclude a covenant with the inhabitants of this land”.14 A hierarchy of nations here coincides with the nature of its economic class stratification. Such rationalizations are provided in the national myths found in the theology at the foundations for the constitutional law of a particular state that does not recognize “the Other” of the nations, present but unaccounted for. On the Babylonian monument known as the stele of Hammurabi, the king is represented as receiving from the god Shamash the ancient collection of laws, commonly called the Code of Hammurabi. The sanctity of the Code was affirmed in the myth of its reception from the hand of the deity. Similarly, in the case of the early legislation of the Kingdom of Israel, the laws are embedded in a narrative framework which is based on the account of the heritage conceived on Mount Sinai, contained in Exod. 21–3, and

 11

26. The notion of “by all means necessary” is often taken as an absolute when actually its sense may rather be gleaned from the expression, “by all means necessary, but not necessarily by any means”. 12 Holy Scriptures, op. cit. , “Samuel”, 8:19–20, p. 328, and, The Bible, op. cit., 1 “Samuel”, 008:019-20. 13 Holy Scriptures, op. cit., “Joshua” 23:6–7, p. 281, and The Bible, op. cit., “Joshua”, 023:006–7. 14 Holy Scriptures, op. cit., “Judges”, 2:2, p. 285, and The Bible, op. cit., “Judges”, 002:002.

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generally called the Book of the Covenant. The laws are represented as inscribed on tablets of stone and handed/transmitted to Moses, the Prophet, inspired by the divine concept,15 so establishing their sanctity.16 The conception and dissemination of Law is applied to the Nations and justified by the existence of the associated deity, transmitted by the agency of the State in the person of the King, or by the Prophet (“Moshiach”), in the name of the Nation. In the case of the Kingdom of Israel it is written very precisely that; “[…] Jehovah, Israel’s G-d”,17 and, “[…] Jehovah the G-d of armies […]”,18 being overall, the identification of the dominant Nation with the Land, the Society, and the Law, together with the State, and furthermore, with a deity, all of which consolidate a hierarchical progression seeking to rationalize an absolute power. Ahad Ha’am contests this concept; “There is no such thing as a G-d of Israel and a different G-d of Egypt; there is one G-d … “,19 as in the Abrahamic tradition. The formation of the Christian religious ideology composed by Peter, John and other disciples of the historical personage, Jesus the Christ/Rebbe Yeshua ben Yussuf, sought a Universalist rationale for the national society with which the Christian social movement expected to achieve hegemony by conversion. The Jewish Nation’s rejection of that assimilation, justified only by that Universalist criterion, created a social contradiction. That became the point of friction between the religious ideologies of Christianity in its opposition to Judaism, and in a similar manner, to Islam as well. A crucial point is embedded into the Christian Testament during John’s account of a narrative between the figure “Jesus Christ” and the Jewish officials named Pharisees, although the narrative there is concerning the Jewish people;

 15

The name “Ad_nai” seems to be derived from the African language “Waloof”, which is spoken in Senegal and contains the ward “Adana”, meaning “life”. There are five Hebrew text names for the deity, and the fifth, read at Rosh Hashonah, refers to “the father who is king.” The ties to the Pharaonic dynasty are thus open to consideration. 16 S.H. Hooske, Middle Eastern Mythology, Great Britain, Penguin Books, 1973, p. 147. 17 Holy Scriptures, op. cit., “Judges”, 5:3, p. 289, and The Bible, op. cit., “Judges”, 005:003. 18 Holy Scriptures, op. cit., “I Kings”, 19:14, p. 428, and The Bible, op. cit., “I Kings”, 019:014. 19 Ahad Ha’am, “Moses”, pp. 206–227, op cit., p. 221.

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42 Jesus said to them: “If G-d were YOUR Father, YOU would love me, for from G-d did I come forth and am here. Neither have I come of my own initiative at all, but that One sent me forth. 43 Why is it YOU do not know what I am speaking? Because YOU cannot listen to my word. 44 You are from YOUR father the Devil, and YOU wish to do the desires of YOUR father. [.. . ] 47 He that is from G-d listens to the sayings of G-d. This is why YOU do not listen, because YOU are not from G-d”.20

Ambiguous at best, this account nonetheless prioritizes one exclusive Content given to the Form of the deity, from another, serving to establish a hierarchy. This is expressed explicitly by the disciple John; 22 Who is the liar if it is not the one that denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one that denies the Father and the Son. Every one that denies the Son does not have the Father either.21

The dissociation of the Jewish Nation from the hegemonic religious ideology continues by creating a tie between the concept of the “Moshiach” (the Christ demo-deity in Greek) with a biological link to the deity as a son, as progeny, to create the social demarcation, as in previous religious symbols. This biological differentiation then becomes the pretext for racism. Such a discriminatory method22 continues in the written remarks to propose the bizarre biological theology that presents a racialist theory of sin distinguishing between “The children of G-d and the children of the Devil […]”.23 The religious justification for oppressive social discrimination follows,

 20

Holy Scriptures, op. cit., “John”, 8:42–47, p. 1163, and, Holy Bible, “John”, 8:42– 47, Guelph, Ontario, The Gideons International in Canada, New American Standard Bible, The Lockman Foundation, 1973, p. 768, and, The Bible, op. cit., “John”, op. cit. 21 Holy Scriptures, op. cit., 1 “John”, 2:22–23, p. 1316, and, The Bible, op. cit., 1 “John”, 002:022–3. 22[…] being considered a having lost the “Father”, denoted as well that the Jewish People were considered to be equivalent to non-believers. Officially, the Holy Roman Empire of Emperor Constantine, the first Roman Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, considered the Jewish people to be equivalent to atheists. As official heretics the Church launched the first Crusades to justify and fulfill its conception of identity and to monopolize the strategic land mass in the eastern Mediterranean.  23 Holy Scriptures, op. cit., 1 “John”, 3:10, p. 1317.

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Sectarianism and Supremacism 35 The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. 36 He that exercises faith in the Son has everlasting life; he that disobeys the Son will not see life, but the wrath of G-d remains up on him.24

This separation of a particular heritage by way of a genetic identity gives rise to the isolation of a nation and a religious current at the same time, serving to identity the nations which do not adopt the Christian religion and its authority as their own (as in the imposed separation between Ishmael and Isaac). Consequently, the retribution inflicted upon the disfavored nations is ascribed to the will of Authority itself, the deity; as an expression of selfdenial. The exclusivist nationalist tendency completes the circle thus made about itself with the genetic connection by family lineage in place, i.e. from the “Father” to the “Son” (a type of Covenant). In this way, ethnocide and genocide become an eventual fait accompli, whether practiced by one religion or another. In this manner, the myth of “race” is constructed, with its associated rationale for racism. The Abrahamic tradition presents itself in the historical consciousness of the Islamic culture as well as the Arab and Jewish Peoples. Historic references are also contained in the Torah and Mishnah books of Judaism. This tradition is based in the rupture from the Patriarchal principle arising from Abram’s departure from the house of his father Terah (Terach) in Sumer. Although Abram was not a Patriarch in principle, in practice he was seen to be and was later re-named Abraham (“Father of Nations”). This ambiguity is exemplified in the dichotomy between the two wives, Sarah and Haj’jar. Asserting the Matriarchal/Patriarchal privilege for her own son Isaac, Sarah brought about the expulsion of lshmael and Haj’jar.25 The caste Order between Sarah the Sumerian and her Egyptian servant Haj’jar determined the privilege of exclusion. Nonetheless, in the formation of the Jewish nation there are numerous instances of non-exclusion; the inclusion of various other Nations amongst the slaves that left Egypt with Moses, the accession of David as monarch of the Nation of Israel (although he was born of a Moabite mother by origin, Ruth) as well as Peretz, who was born of the

 24

Holy Scriptures, op. cit., “John”, 3:35–36, p. 1155. 25The version “J” of the Torah, considered to be from the time of Solomon’s court and to have been edited by a woman (a sister of Salomon), recounts the story of Haj’jar in a significantly different light. Haj’jar is driven away by Sarah with her son lshmael until they are directed by divine intervention to remain with Abraham, which she does. See The Book of J, translated by David Rosenberg, op.cit., p. 80. 

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problematic relationship between Yehuda and Tamar,26 and then King Solomon, who produced a progeny of various Nations and religions. Despite the legalistic norms of orthodoxy, the traditional Jewish social practice coexisted with other Nations: there was never a separation. Furthermore, the Nation was considered to be a matter of identity and not family origin, as in the case of Ruth. In addition, the Jewish Nation does not base itself upon some myth of divine progeny, as is illustrated here: The founders of the Jewish People are not divine or semi-divine beings, as is the case with the mythical heroes of Greece, Rome or the Teutonic nations. They are purely human personalities […]27

so, avoiding hierarchical implications. It is thus also conceivable that the Nation has its basis in non-exclusive categories. Alongside the hierarchical conceptions of the nation are the social conventions of inter-national relations, based on mutual recognition and accord. Abraham made an agreement for the burial site for his wife Sarah (Sar’ai) at Kiriath-arba (Hebron/Hevron) in the land of Canaan with members of the Hittite nation. 4 “I am a resident alien among you; sell me a burial site among you, that I may remove my dead for burial”. […] Abraham bowed low to the people of the land, the children of Heth […] 16 Abraham accepted Ephron’s terms. Abraham paid out to Ephron the money that he had named in the hearing of the children of Heth—four hundred shekels of silver at the going merchants’ rate. 17 So Ephron’s land in Machpelah, facing Mamre the field with its cave and all the trees anywhere within the confine of that field 18 passed to Abraham as his possession, in the presence of the children of Heth, of all who sat on the council of his town.28

 26 Binyamin Kahane, “Terach the Father of Avraham”, Haggadah of the Jewish Idea,

Yeshiva of the Jewish Idea, Kfar Tapuach, Israel. 27 J.H. Hertz, The Torah, “Genesis - Additional notes, G-Abraham I”, The Pentateuch and Haftorahs, London, Soncino Press, 5713–1952, p. 200. 28 The Torah, op. cit., “Genesis”, 23: 4–18, pp. 37-38, and Holy Scriptures, op. cit., “Genesis”, 23: 4–18, pp. 31–32, and The Bible, op. cit., “Genesis”, 023:004–18.

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In this manner, a social code was formed, thus contributing to a civil code, the practice and tradition of the civil society in formation. Evidently, the tendency to hierarchical exclusivity is not necessarily the dominant manner of interaction concerning other nations of that age. The ancient “covenant” (constitution, treaty, pact) and the more recent “contract” (diplomacy) were formed out of the natural interactions of various social formations; nations living in proximity, trade relations, interclan formation of tribes, and inter-tribal compacts in the process of nation building. Pierre Joseph Proudhon points to this tendency as a fundamental process in society. Founded upon contract, the solemn expression of liberty, federation could never fail to appeal to man. More than twelve centuries before Christ, it appeared among the Hebrew tribes, separate from one another in their own valleys, but, like the tribes of lshmael, united by a sort of contract of kinship. Only a little later it emerged in the Amphictyonie league […]29

The ancient Nation, then, was formed from a People with conflicting tendencies as its characteristics. The translation of the Torah makes it obvious how the Palestinian people are viewed in the context of a Restorationist program. The edict to occupy “The Holy Land”/Levantine is treated as a divine crusade, requiring no other justification than the final victory of its ideology. The legend/history of Jericho (or its modern reflection, the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila30) that followed, is an illustration of the methodology involved. “They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.” 31 “Thus I gave you a land for which you had not toiled and cities that you had not built, and you took up dwelling in them. Vine yards and olive groves that you did not plant are what you are eating.” […] “And Jehovah proceeded to

 29

Pierre Joseph Proudhon, The Principle of Federation, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1979, p. 50. 30 See Sabra and Shatila, a documentary study by Eibie (Abraham) Weisfeld (Weizfeld), Ottawa, Jerusalem International Publishing House, (1984), 2009. 31 New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, Brooklyn, Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society of Pennsylvania, 1961, p. 259, “Joshua”, 6: 21.

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drive out all the peoples, even the Am’orites dwelling in the land from before you. As for us, too, we shall serve Jehovah, because he is our G-d.” 32

This reference to the Covenant, as made by the Deity with Abraham, the patriarch, for his descendants without distinction, so including the first-born son Ishmael, is transformed so that the Promised Land is renamed to be the possession of Jacob and his descendants alone. The exclusive Covenant with which an expulsion of the indigenous nations is justified is found in the “Old Testament” books, appended to the five books of the Torah-Pentateuch, and derives from the Torah’s reference to a lineage, allowing for an exclusive interpretation assigned to Isaac and Sarah. There is an ambiguity introduced with reference to the lineage of Abraham and so the legitimacy of his lineage, thus introducing a national principle. 10 And G-d said to him, “Your name is Jacob; You shall no longer be called Jacob, But Israel shall be your name”. Thus He called him Israel. 11 G-d also said to him. “I am G-d Almighty; Be fruitful and multiply; A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, And kings shall come forth from you.

12 “And the land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I will give it to you, I will give it to you, And I will give the land to your descendants after you”.33

Repeated in the final word of the Pentateuch from Moses is a second declaration of the Covenant,

 32

Holy Scriptures, Ibid., “Joshua”, 24:13, 24:18, pp. 282–283. 33 New American Standard Bible, op. cit., “Genesis”, 35: 10–12, p. 27.

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Sectarianism and Supremacism And the Lord said to him; this is the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, “I will give it to your offspring.” I have let you see it with your own eyes, but you shall not cross there.34

The inclusion of these references to Abrahamic lineage in the books of Moses, The Pentateuch, points to the prerogative of the account’s editor, after the fact, since Moses is found contextually on Mount Nebo dying, alone, without means to transmit such a declaration. The linear formula of Abraham=Isaac=Jacob is thus a secondary tendency introduced in the postMasoretic period by the “JEPD” editor of 400 BCE. Evidently, the covenant with Abraham had come to be considered as supplanted by a more restrictive interpretation in the subsequent Covenant with Jacob/Israel, a Covenant in the exclusive sense. It is this latter interpretation of the Abrahamic Covenant that is claimed by the Zionist exclusivity rooted in sectarianism. However, what is not often referred to is the precedent established by Jacob just prior to that subsequent Covenant. In revenge for the sexual assault and confinement of their sister Dinah—the daughter of Leah whom she had borne to Jacob—his two sons, Simeon and Levi, took action. In consequence, the Hivites of Shechem (Nablus/Nablis) in Kana’an became circumcised in order to reconcile themselves with the Hebrews of Jacob: 25 Now it came about on the third day, when they were in pain, that two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, each took his sword and came up on the city unawares, and killed every male. 26 And they killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the edge of the word, and took Dinah from Shechem’s house, and went forth. […] 29 and they captured and looted all their wealth and all their little ones and their wives, even all that “was” in the houses. 30 Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought trouble on me, by making me odious among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites; and my men being few in number, they will gather together against me and attack me and I shall be destroyed. I and my household.”35

 34

“Deuteronomy” 34.4, The Torah: The Five Books of Moses, Philadelphia, The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1962, p. 393. 35 New American Standard Bible, op. cit., “Genesis”, 34: 25–30, p. 27.

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In this single instance, the opposing tendencies of exclusivity and inclusivity are intertwined, although it may be observed that the conditions of the Covenant with Jacob was predicated upon his acceptance of coexistence with the other Nations in the land of Kana’an. The methodology of the Torah editors was one of deliberate ambiguity and consensus of irreconcilable interpretations. This approach was adopted for the sake of National unity and for the lack of an alternative to the theocratic imperative that imposed a uniformity of usage. To further unravel the knot of intertwined tendencies, it is remarkable to also note the lineage of the Patriarch. Since the Patriarchal principle asserts the first-born male’s right of priority in succession, in the case of Abraham and Ishmael, the exclusionist citations above contain a contradiction to the Patriarchal lineage of Ishmael as first-born. Evidently there are two lineages in evidence that fulfill the conditions of the original Covenant with Abram, saying: To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates: the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.36

Noticing that the Covenant reads Abraham alone, and not Sarah, this clearly points to the inclusive nature of the formulation. Whether it came to be written as an ambiguity later on is as irrelevant as the warmongering to be found in books of later editions, that do not represent the “Law” in the formative Judaic tradition. In the Abrahamic tradition, there is much to be appreciated, in contrast to the ideology of Zionism. In two aspects in particular, there are serious lessons to be appreciated. The first is the nature of societal relations with other nations as neighbors. And the second is the guilt of the selfconsciousness of having sacrificed one son by exile in the desert and so being obliged in reciprocity to sacrifice the second son to whom he wished to guarantee his Covenant. The dishonorable role of Sarah (Sar’ai) in asking for the exile of Ishmael and Haj’jar, his mother, her Egyptian slave, together with the compliance of Abraham, led him to accept the serious consequences of the obligation placed upon him when he heard the command, and to sacrifice his second son Isaac. The refusal to accept

 36

The Torah, op. cit., “Genesis”, 15: 18–21, p. 25.

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Ishmael, together with Isaac, is equivalent to the rejection of national coexistence that was the cornerstone of the Zionist enterprise. The perversion of Israel Zangwill’s saying that the Jewish people need “a Land without a people for a People without a Land” to represent PalestineKana’an is the sacrifice of another people who are also the descendants of Abraham and who revered the patriarch as such. The massacre in 1994 at the mosque of the Tomb of Abraham was an attempt at denial. If Ishmael is to be denied then so must David and Salomon be denied as being of the Jewish nation, since they were the descendants of a Moabite woman, Ruth. In the first instance that the Abrahamic tradition leaves us, mentioned above, that being the nature of treaty relations Abraham established with his neighboring nations, we should be impressed by the reciprocal relations established. On National Autonomy, alongside the hierarchical conceptions of the nation, rests the social conventions of inter-national relations based on mutual recognition and accord. It is recorded that Abraham ben Te’rah (A’bram initially and commonly referred to as Abraham Avinu) on behalf of the Hebrews, made a Covenant with the Philis’tines concerning a water well; 22 Now it came about at that time that Abirn’ech together with Phi’col the chief of his army said to Abraham: “… So now swear to me here by Gd that you will not prove false to me and to my offspring and to my posterity; that, according to the loyal love with which I have dealt with you, you will deal with me and with the land in which you have been residing as an alien.” 24 So Abraham said: “I shall swear.” … Abraham took sheep and cattle and gave them to Abirn’ech, and both of them proceeded to conclude a covenant. 31 That is why he called that place Be’ershe’ba, because there both of them had taken an oath. 32

So they concluded a covenant at Beersheba…

34 And Abraham extended his residence as an alien in the land of the Philistines many day.37

 37

New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, New York, Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society of Pennsylvania, 1961, p. 30 (Genesis 21: 22–34 ), and, The

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Such a covenant is far from that concluded in the Oslo Interim Agreement, together with the failure to even implement that social contract by the Zionist authority. At the root of the sectarian mentality is the notion of the “self” apart from its homologue “the non-self”, which is, in effect, a negation of the “self” itself. The reconciliation of the two reflections must proceed from a critique of the “self” and its repeated failures, together with its personification in the superstructure of the State, the Nation-State in particular, during the “modern” era.

Conclusion The difference between a bi-national secular constitutional civil society and secularism corresponds to the historical difference between the “millet” system of the Ottoman era and the subsequent modernist reform of “tanzimat”, which sought to create a homogenized, uniform, equal citizenship under a centralized state superstructure.38 The secularist premise in such a dichotomy is that social identity is formed only as a religion while ignoring national civic identity to favor the national identity propagated by the state itself. The heterogeneous nature of civil society is considered an obstacle in such a paradigm. The attempt to impose a homogenous character on the civil society in pursuit of equality and modernity merely results in the eventual dictatorship of a particular faction of civil society over the other social formations existing in the actuality of civil society. The drive for a centralized political apparatus is, rather, a mechanism for the propagation of economic institutions by large-scale production, and so conducive to the development of a national bourgeoisie. Such a national bourgeoisie is usually in the process of development in comparison to the “advanced” capitalist nation-states and, as such, becomes necessarily subordinate to the transnational corporations that have spread across the geopolitical sphere. The developing national bourgeoisie and its nation-state become a dependent client state in the neo-colonial matrix. As such, it exists in contradiction to itself, since it remains under the control of non-national powers while proclaiming itself to be an independent national entity.

 Pentateuch and Haftorahs, edited by the late Chief Rabbi Dr. J.H. Hertz, CH, London, Soncino Press, 5713-1952, p. 73. 38 Khaled Diab, “Diversity in Disunity in the Middle East”, Aljazeera, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/04/diversity-disunity-middleeast-160412091540054.html , www.chronikler.com>, @diabolicalidea

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The dichotomy between inclusive and exclusive secularism is thus the differentiation between a society that has no defined homogenous character and accepts all who are comprised within by virtue of the affinity that brought about that society in the first place. The exclusive nature of secularism is defined by a state that forbids the expression of any cultural attributes that differ from the state-sponsored theocratic culture, and presumes that all the subjects of the State would adopt by assimilation such a common definition of citizenship in the mode of the nation-state itself. Despite the horrendous consequences of such a definition, particularly in Europe over the course of the twentieth century, the lack of critique of such a model is most disturbing.

THE FORMATION OF IDENTITY: CASE STUDY BAYRAM ÜNAL PROFESSOR, SOCIOLOGY, NIGDE UNIVERSITY

AND DAVID MAKOFSKY ADJUNCT PROFESSOR, SOCIOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY INDIANA UNIVERSITY NORTHWEST

Introduction David Makofsky, Bayram Unal, and an assistant, Maimaitijiang Abudugayiti, conducted ethnographic and survey-based research on an ethnic Turkic Muslim group, the Uyghurs of Chinese Central Asia. The focus of this study was on the role of gender, social class, and historic memory in the formation of identity. Although much of the research was done in Turkey, everyone who is interviewed was born and raised in the Muslim and Turkic speaking area of the Uyghur Independent Republic of Xinjiang, one of the northwest provinces of China. The Uyghurs, together with their close linguistic neighbors, the Uzbeks, are among the most populous of the Turkic-speaking Muslim people of Central Asia. They live in the vast region of grasslands and mountains that stretch from the Mediterranean to the center of China, Xian. Numbering more than 15 million, the Uyghurs are one of the largest ethnic groups in China. Over the course of many centuries their nomadic ancestors migrated westward from the Eastern part of Central Asia to what is now contemporary Anatolia. Among those whose ancestors did not migrate are the Uyghur Muslims of China. The Uyghur dialect is considered close to “old Turkish”. Using a sample of Uyghurs in Turkey, we tested the inclusion of social class and Islamic customary practice on the process of “modernization” in the Muslim world. “Modernization theory”, developed in the 1960’s by applied social scientists from a Weberian-oriented tradition has had its own

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shortcoming: it is too general to be useful. By specifying the impact of Islam and social class, we hope to improve its utility. A questionnaire was developed concerning the issues raised in the process of the modernizing revolution of the Muslim world attitudes towards Islamic practices and towards secular culture.

1: Fundamental Life Style and Identity Hierarchy among Uyghurs One part of the study investigates the perceived and lived identities of Uyghur youth temporarily living in Turkey through fundamental determinants: Halbwachs’ concept of social memory and Assman’s concept of Communicative memory. The memory that defines the student’s sense of belonging to their racial roots was structured on normative and formative foundations. As we will show in the questionnaire, the quality of “collectiveness” was used to determine fidelity among the members of the community. However, it is naïve to assume that the social/cultural memory is the only factor constituting the individual’s identity without understanding changes over time and geographic distances. Especially in the diaspora, social memory is not sufficient in contributing to belonging, and we find that that “historical memory” has been transferred to the everyday life as a differential interpretation of the past. The second part of the study investigates ethnic identity: the maintenance of customary Muslim community practices, attempting to focus on social class and gender differences. A sample drawn from Uyghur students and professionals in Turkey in the spring of 2015 was supplemented by visiting an Uyghur refugee camp in Turkey. This study focuses on the understanding of perceived and lived identities of Uygur youth temporarily living in Turkey through fundamental determinants. Halbwachs’ concept of social memory and Assman’s concept of Communicative memory. The memory that defined Uyghur students’ belonging to their racial roots has been structured on normative and formative factors. These have always been the subject of further collectiveness measuring the fidelity among the members of the community. However, it will be naïve to assume that the social/cultural memory has been only the factor feeding the individual’s identity without understanding the time and space behind it. Especially in

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the diaspora, social memory would not be sufficient in feeding the belonging without considering the fact that the historical root has likely transferred to everyday life as a knowledge of the past. The study is based on the data collected in østanbul, Ankara and Kayseri in 2015. Questionnaires and in-depth interviews with Uyghur students in these cities. What is liberalism and fundamentalism, what is Muslim liberalism and resistance? A well-known American sociologist with a Muslim background, Monsoor Moaddel, made the following observation differentiating between Muslim experiences in various settings. Moaddel contrasted two types of Islam (1999:108–109): “From the nineteenth century on, Europeans and their westernized allies in the Islamic countries have predominantly condemned Islam for its mistreatment of women. The responses of the Islamic scholars have been diverse. In Islamic fundamentalism, there is an outright attack on the West for its cultural “decadence” and sexual promiscuity. (Muslim) Women are instructed to cover their bodies from head to toe with the exception of the face.” “In contrast, a group of modernist Muslim theologians, notably in India and Egypt around the turn of the century (1900), advanced a modernist exegesis of the Quran, arriving at an Islamic feminist conception of gender relations. These scholars championed women’s rights to education and involvement in social affairs, questioned the existing restrictions on women, criticized men’s attitudes and behavior toward women and rejected polygamy.”

Moaddel (1999: 111) argued that "liberalism in Egypt and India was made possible by the decline of the old Islamic elite. As a result, the requisite social resources and space for new culture production were provided, a pluralistic discursive field emerged, and the growth of Islamic modernist discourse was made possible”. Liberal Muslim thought cannot be discussed solely on the basis of the situation of women. It also requires a re-evaluation and reformulation of a number of cultural values. Secularism and rationalization involve the reforming of institutions to train a professional class. Although Moaddel refers to Egypt and India, its impact can be felt throughout the world of Islam.

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What is social identity? The term “social identity” according to Deaux (1996) "refers to those aspects of a person that are defined in terms of his or her group memberships." In his words, "although most people are members of many different groups, only some of those groups are meaningful in terms of how they define themselves." In these cases, "our self-definition is shared with other people who also claim that categorical membership, for example, a woman, a Muslim, a marathon runner, a Democrat." This shared conception of any individual is decisive in governing his or her behaviors in interaction with others in any given social settings as a prominent way of conceptualizing self over (Stryker, 1980). Later on Stryker along with Burke (2000:285) included links between external social structure and the structure itself. As self, Stryker argues, individuals designate their positions for how they are to behave. Furthermore, they designate the others’ position as being informed of the expectations guiding the role of behaviors of others. At first glance, many forms of social identity exist, reflecting the many ways in which people connect to other groups and social categories. People in this connection are aware of the expectations associated with either their or others’ positions. The identity is a critical link between the individual and social structure as people make about themselves in relation to their location in social structures and they, in turn, play by virtue of this location (Stryker and Burke: 2000). From the core points of symbolic interaction approach individuals are mostly stimulated through this link in order to verify their sense of being in the eyes of others. Here we talk about the multiple positions other than multiple identities. This framework is taken from the work of Kay Deaux (1996) on social identity.

Muslim, Uyghur identification in the Survey An Uyghur support organization helped distribute the questionnaire to Uyghur students from China visiting Turkey and Uyghur professionals living in Turkey. Nearly every Uyghur who was in touch with the organization was asked to fill out the questionnaire, and some were interviewed in person. The organization offers classes in Turkish, Uyghur, Chinese and English, offers employment opportunities, holiday festivals, religious ceremonies and other services to facilitate life for a foreigner in Turkey. Some Uyghurs do not use the services, and these could not be contacted.

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The respondents were not asked a direct question about religion and ethnic identification. There is a question about marriage. The importance of marriage is critical to the culture and religion. Marriage insures one’s place in Uyghur society. As Table I demonstrates, members of the group have a very strong Muslim identity and a very strong Uyghur identity. Question 5. I will only marry a Muslim Question 6. I will only marry an Uyghur Table I Muslim, Uyghur Identity

I will only marry a Muslim I will only marry an Uyghur

Agree

Neither Agree nor Disagree

Disagree

Total

76 (77.36%)

8 (9.2%)

3 (3.45%)

87

63 (71.59%)

18 (28.45%)

7 (7.96%)

88

  

Although there are some interesting deviant cases to investigate, who are those three to ten people who do not agree with these statements: 71%–77 % of the respondents agree without qualification that for one of the most important decision they will make in their life, they will make this decision as a Muslim/Uyghur group member. This statement of Muslim and Uyghur identity follows the narrative of Gardner Bovington (2002), namely that there is a consistent and persistent Uyghur majority that retains its national and religious identity and refuses to assimilate in terms preferred by the government of China, which is viewed by the Uyghurs as secularist and Han Chinese. This is no small point to make. In recent years the government of the PRC has employed a great deal of effort in both a carrot-and-stick approach to “move the Uyghur mule”, that is to say, to promote Uyghur assimilation. The “Tianjin experiment” (David McKenzie, CNN, Nov 2 2014) represented the “carrot” approach. Over the course of several years Chinese officials selected a large group of Uyghur students (roughly 10,000) in Xinjiang, on the elementary school level.

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These young Uyghurs were separated from their parents (with the cooperation of the parents) and completely immersed in a “Han” environment. The students were settled in Eastern China where no Uyghur was spoken. After a decade of this approach the government used methods of research similar to those used in Sociology and Anthropology in an identity study of the Uyghur cadre. Researchers concluded that the students continued to see themselves as both Uyghur and Muslim and declared the experiment a “failure”. The children, who did not have regular access to their parents or neighbors, associated mostly with other Uyghurs, and did not respond to questions in a way that the government deemed appropriate. I have often encountered young Uyghurs who were part of this experiment. Almost uniformly the Uyghur students had positive feelings from the experience. The experiment was deemed a failure because it did not produce a political cadre of young people completely loyal to the PRC, not because of any educational shortcomings. What the PRC appears to have wanted was a revival of the Cultural Revolution. As for the “stick”, the PRC is employing the “strike hard” policy in Xinjiang, which includes mass arrests and show trials. One facet of this is the exportation of Uyghur labor to jobs in Eastern China and the importation of Han labor to Xinjiang. This is a forcible attempt to disperse the Uyghur majority in Xinjiang, and by doing so to assimilate the Uyghurs. The situation has been termed a “limited war” between the PRC and the Uyghurs by a German Chinese research center (Marc Julienne, Moritz Rudolf, Johannes Buckow Diplomat, 05/2015). The PRC also takes efforts to limit Islamic practice. Young Uyghur girls must remove their head covering when attending public schools; restaurants are forced to remain open for the daylight hours during Ramadan. Police have forcibly cut off the beards of elderly gentlemen. The government has labeled Chinese beer “halal” (i.e., made in an Islamic way) for sale in the province. Drinking alcoholic beverages is considered “haram” (forbidden) for Muslims, but, as Table II shows, there is alcoholic consumption among Uyghurs. The government would like to open this market to Han-produced beer. State violence instills fear in the population, but it is relatively ineffective as a means of promoting assimilation into the Chinese society. There is a great deal of cultural change in the Uyghur population, but it is not too difficult to understand why “Uyghur and Muslim” remains at the core of identity and why it persists over the years.

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Muslim Uyghur Women and Identity Conflict Identification is a powerful social concept, but in the face of choices there are important differences along gender lines. In terms of social identity, one of the main problems is that the burden of maintaining social identity is more likely to be felt by women since customary practices affect women’s dress and social behavior. Some survey questions elicit differences between the attitudes of women and men towards customary Uyghur practice. x Women should only dress in an Islamic way x It is best that my parents arrange my marriage x It is OK if men drink alcoholic beverages but not women or girls x The proper place for women is in the home, with the family Table II Women and Men on Social Customs Agree

Neither Agree nor Disagree

Disagree

Total

Women should only dress in an Islamic way – MEN

41 (75.93 %)

8 (14.81 %)

5 (9.26 %)

54

Women dress in Islamic way – WOMEN

18 (62.07 %)

9 (31.03 %)

2 (6.9 %)

29

It is best that my parents arrange my marriage – MEN

23 (41.81 %)

20 (36.36 %)

12 (21.82 %)

55

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Table II Women and Men on Social Customs Agree

Neither Agree nor Disagree

Disagree

Total

It is best that my parents arrange my marriage – WOMEN

19 (63.33 %)

9 (30.0 %)

2 (6.66 %)

30

It is OK if men drink alcoholic beverages but not women or girls – MEN

11 (21.57 %)

3 (7.84 %)

36 (70.59 %)

54

It is OK if men drink alcoholic beverages but not women or girls – WOMEN

11 (36.66 %)

5 (16.67 %)

14 (46.67 %)

28

The proper place for women is in the home, MEN

34 (61.82 %)

11 (20.0 %)

10 (18.19 %)

55

The proper place for women is in the home WOMEN

12 (40.0 %)

8 (26.67 %)

10 (33.34 %)

30

Questions in Table II present a set of conventional customs in Xinjiang that are an alternative to the “Western” values of individual freedom. “Freedom of dress”, “love versus parental control”, “women’s right to determine their own future” are pervasive in the West and opposed by customary practice in the Muslim community.

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Every single one of the questions touches on practices that are being challenged on a regular basis. This set of customs and values that are part of Islamic society apply primarily to women rather than to men. It is fairly evident that most men believe that women should “dress in an Islamic way” (question 4) and men certainly agree that “the proper place for women is in the home” (question 20). Although female respondents are somewhat divided about dress, many do not intend to stay home. They will enter the world of work. The women are students and some are some are pursuing a graduate degree. The issue of arranged marriage is a very serious subject that divides opinion. It should be noted that most Uyghur arranged marriages in the more traditional Uyghur culture occur when the girls are in their early teens. The women in the study are too “old” and too “educated” to be told what to do. Their male counterparts are on their way to rejecting the custom of arranged marriage for themselves. Questions on Islamic practices are complicated ones. Drinking alcohol (Quran 5:90) and intoxication (Quran 4:43) represent strictly forbidden (haram) Muslim practices. Although many strict Muslims in this survey opposed even assuming that it is OK for men to drink, in practice there is quite a bit of alcohol drinking among Uyghurs. Many find it uncomfortable to see these questions raised. Even so, questions on Islamic practice show that there is a great deal to learn about changes in Islamic culture in general and Uyghur culture in particular. For instance, the question on alcohol consumption does not ask about individual drinking, but asks whether men can violate Islamic law and enjoy themselves while women cannot. Another way for participants to look at this question in a more affirmative way is to say that women need to be “protected”. It is difficult to understand why this is the case, but women are more likely to accept the double standard (36.66% of the women agree and 21.57% of the men agree) of applying different standards to women and men. Additionally 16.6 % of the women respond “neither agree nor disagree” and so do not answer the question. Only 7.84% of the men did not answer the question. Very few men or women openly disagree with these conventional values, except for the fact that nearly one third of the women do not believe that their proper place is in the home (Question 20).

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In Table III, regarding Muslim practices, respondents of both sexes subscribe to these basic tenets of Muslim life. Simply because Uyghurs say that they follow practices does not mean that they actually do so; Uyghur men are reputed to be drinkers, and there are always some Uyghur restaurants serving breakfast and lunch during Ramadan (the month of daylight fasting) and these are crowded. Table III Attitudes towards Islamic Practices

Agree

Neither Agree nor Disagree

Disagree

Total

I will only eat Halal food MEN

55 (100.0 %)

0 (0.0 %)

0 (0.0 %)

55

5. I will only eat Halal food WOMEN

28 (93.33 %)

1 (3.33 %)

1 (3.33 %)

30

17. I do not drink beer or alcoholic beverages MEN

53 (96.36 %)

2 (3.64 %)

0 (0.0 %)

55

17. I do not drink beer or alcoholic beverages WOMEN

28 (93.33 %)

1 (3.33 %)

1 (3.33 %)

30

22. I always fast during Ramadan (Razi) MEN

47 (86.46 %)

5 (9.09 %)

3 (5.46 %)

55

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The responses in Table III resemble those of Table I regarding marriage. For Uyghurs, choosing a spouse and following dietary practices present few of the problems and divisions that characterize the protection and control over women. On issues regarding women’s dress and place in the family, the level of agreement is quite low, and it is in these values that gender identity issues are more apparent. Uyghur “National” Identity investigated in Ethnic Language Schools, Visual Arts III (a) Uyghur identity and Uyghur Language Schools Any citizen of China can attend Chinese language elementary, secondary, and university level schools, but in Xinjiang province there are regular schools up to the college level offering instruction in Uyghur. Benson (2004 pp.191, 197) notes that this program of minority language education, which extends down to the elementary education level, has existed from the time of the 1949 revolution. This reflects the fact that Uyghur/Turkish, not Chinese, is the first language of the millions of Uyghurs living in the region. Although Chinese statistics do not report the ethnicity of school children, it may be that nearly one million students are enrolled in the Uyghur language school system (Kormandy, 2012, Table I pp.110). At the university level, ethnic language university programs are taught in the ethnic language, but all other courses are in Chinese. Graduates of the Uyghur minority language elementary school programs can attend Chinese language middle schools, high schools and universities, but they must pass the entrance exam. The exams are exclusively in Chinese. Often graduates of the Uyghur language system must attend remedial Chinese language schools in order to qualify for entrance to a regular Chinese university program. A group of universities has been set aside for minorities. There are over fifty official minorities in China today; the Uyghurs are one of the largest. As Chris Evans-Hume reports: The Minzu University of China (in Beijing) ... is a major ethnic minority university in China. Approximately 70% of the students are non-Han Chinese minorities. The school has been designated as a Project 211 School. This means that the government gives Minzu funding: University of China special funding and support, for the purpose of modernizing and improving the competitiveness of higher education in China.

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On the questionnaire, since there are two different types of schools, questions 23 and 24 separated those with different educational background. Some respondents went to both types of schools and so answered as both Uyghur and Chinese school attendees. FOR THOSE WHO ATTENDED UYGHUR LANGUAGE SCHOOLS Question 23A I went to Uyghur language schools — if we do not go to Uyghur language schools then our culture will die Question 23B I went to Uyghur language schools — and I suffered for it, because our schools are not as good as Chinese language schools Table IV Evaluation of Uyghur schools

Agree

Neither Agree nor Disagree

Disagree

Total

23A Uyghur Culture may die

64 (81.01 %)

9 (11.39 %)

6 (7.6 %)

79

23B Uyghur schools not good and may suffer for attendance

58 (73.42 %)

11 (13.92 %)

10 (12.66 %)

79

FOR THOSE WHO ATTENDED CHINESE LANGUAGE SCHOOLS Question 23A I went to Chinese language schools — but if we do not go to Uyghur language schools then our culture will die Question 23B I went to Chinese language schools — the schools are better and I have a good chance to get a job.

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Table V Those who go to Chinese schools evaluate Uyghur schools

Agree

Neither Agree nor Disagree

Disagree

Total

23A Uyghur Culture may die

34 (77.27 %)

5 (11.36 %)

5 (11.36 %)

44

23B Schools better, job opportunities

13 (31.71 %)

13 (31.71 %)

15 (36.58 %)

41

This is a study of college students and professionals who attended Uyghur or Chinese schools on the primary level, then Uyghur or Chinese schools on the secondary level, and Chinese schools on a college level. Any Uyghur who goes to college must be literate in Chinese because they must pass an entrance exam in Chinese as a Second Language for college entrance. Table IV and Table V refer to an important issue. As has been seen, the school system is complicated in Xinjiang, and the Chinese government is considering abolishing the Uyghur language school system. Experts who support the elimination of Uyghur language schools (Ma Rung R. Wang, and M. Wu, 2009:117-131) say that Uyghurs suffer from Uyghur language schools that are inferior to the Chinese schools. These arguments are not made by Uyghurs but by Chinese scholars, because Uyghur scholars and professionals are the core of the Uyghur educational system. One hears the comment that the real aim of the Chinese government is to destroy Uyghur culture, although statements such as this cannot be made in writing in the PRC (Bovington, 2002). It should come as no surprise, given the experience of the respondents, that few Uyghurs are indifferent to the subject of Uyghur language schools. The respondents in this study are least tri-lingual: Uyghur, Turkish, and Chinese. As many Uyghurs who complain will tell you, “we must know two or three languages, while the Chinese need to know one language. “ No matter what school they attended, most of the participants believe that the Uyghur national culture is tied to the Uyghur language school system. In Table IV, 81.01% of those who attended Uyghur language schools believe them necessary to preserve Uyghur culture. In Table V 77.27% of those who

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attended Chinese schools believe Uyghur language schools are necessary to preserve Uyghur culture. It may be that the government intends to discontinue the Uyghur language schools and many respondents feel that they pay a price for going to an Uyghur language school, but in the choice between cultural continuity and individual opportunity, cultural continuity wins. Chinese is not an easy language to learn. Many consider it the most difficult major language in the world. An Uyghur may be at a serious disadvantage competing with a first language speaker of Chinese. Teachers may consider an Uyghur child “stupid” for their faulty use of Chinese. Visual Art and Uyghur Identity Following are three paintings of Uyghur women, which were shown to participants. The paintings were not identified in the questionnaire.

Picture 1 Kariye Women from Zorem Yasem’s series on Uyghur women

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Picture 2 Uyghur woman From Zoram Picture 3 College student, from Zoram Yasem’s series on Uyghur women Yasem’s series on Uyghur women

Question 25. Which picture represents a picture of the average Uyghur girl today? Picture Count Percent Total 1 46 57.5 % 80 2 17 21.25 % 80 3 6 7.5 % 80 1 and 2 6 7.5 % 80 2 and 3 1 1.25 % 80 All 3 4 5.0 % 80 Each of these paintings is the work of Zoram Yassam and is part of a series of paintings of Uyghur women that has gained national (Chinese) and international attention, making Zoram Yasem an important painter in the Uyghur contemporary art world. "Zoram Yasem’s background is interesting. She did not begin to paint while young, and instead went to college and married. It was only after a divorce that she went to Japan and studied oil painting, then returned to Xinjiang to paint (Xinjiang Art, 2012, p.35)."

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She is an Assistant Professor, Vice Director in Xinjiang Art Institute in Urumqi. Her painting of Kariye women, Picture 1, shows women wearing a Kariye style of clothing prevalent in the southern part of Xinjiang. The woman portrayed in Picture 2 is dressed “kapali”, literally “closed”, with a head covering in the Muslim style. In Picture 3 a college student is dressed in Western-style clothing with no head covering. Uyghur college students in Turkey are from Xinjiang, China. There are no museums of Uyghur painting in Xinjiang, although there are exhibits in galleries that are open to the public. Learning about Uyghur art as part of Uyghur cultural identity is not a part of the curriculum in the educational system. Many of the respondents have probably never seen any of these portraits or learned to look at Uyghur culture in this manner. Students may not be familiar with the paintings, but they are aware of clothing and fashion. The allure of Picture 1, as one Uyghur student said, is that the figures are undeniably Uyghur. The clothes, the braided hair, the fact that each woman in the picture has a doppa (a little cap on the head scarf) make the picture stand out from the other two, although the style represented in Picture 1 is worn by very few women in urban areas in Xinjiang. One Uyghur graduate student complained, “Is this the dress of 750 women maximum?” Picture 2 looks like any Muslim woman and Picture 3 looks like any college student. On any visit to an Uyghur college campus, café, or snack shop in Xinjiang cities such as Kashgar or Urumqi one can see young Uyghur women dressed in a completely Western fashion, very similar to the woman in Picture 3. Despite this, a sizable majority of the students and professionals identify this painting alone, the Kariye women (Picture 1), as “real Uyghurs”. 57.5% identify this painting as a portrayal of young Uyghur women. Some young men and women identified Picture 3 of the Western dressed woman as “not Uyghur”. Respondents who said this about Picture 3 often themselves wore no Uyghur clothing at all, and dressed in an identical fashion to the woman in the painting. A young men from a conservative background remarked that the woman in painting, Picture 3, is “not Uyghur, perhaps Russian”. One participants described Picture 2 as “looking like my mother”, but still chose Picture 1 as “typical Uyghur girls”. Picture 1 is Uyghur and is a favorite. This idealization of cultural objects is part of the landscape of growing up, maturing, in an ethnic environment.

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Paintings and Celebrations, Uyghur and Muslim, Uyghur or Muslim? What happens when Uyghur culture is inconsistent with Islam? This is asked in a question concerning Nowruz, a holiday, and in a question about a painting of an Uyghur celebration, Ghazi Ahmet’s Meshrep (party) (see Picture 4 and Table VIII). Among the festival days celebrated by the Uyghurs, Nowruz is different. It is not an Islamic holiday. Nowruz is the ancient holiday of Central Asia, traditionally associated with Zoroaster, the famous holy man of Central Asia, who represents a pre-monotheistic philosophy of science and natural religion. For the large number of Central Asian people that follow this tradition of the zodiac, the year begins with the New Day when the Sun leaves the sign of Pisces and enters the sign of Aries, during the Vernal Equinox. This is pre-Islamic. The Uyghur ancestors were part of the people who adopted Shamanism and early Central Asian religions, and then followed Nestorian Christianity and Buddhism before the arrival of Islam in the Eighth century. The ties to preIslamic faith remain firmly rooted in popular culture. In Table VIII 43.18 % disagree with the statement “Nowruz is not Muslim, so it cannot be celebrated by Uyghurs”. In Picture 4 we see the work of an Uyghur modernist Ghazi Ahmet. From an Uyghur tradition where the female body is not shown in a painting, Uyghur modernist works are provocative. This painting has caused controversy since it was created. A Meshrep is a traditional party. This painting is well known internationally and was exhibited in Europe, but it still evokes criticism from survey participants who see it as “not Muslim”.

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Picture 4 Ghazi Ahmet, Meshrep — title and artist not identified in the questionnaire

As we have seen previously in the discussion of social values in Table II, there is a great deal of difficulty upholding conservative Muslim values when these values are in direct conflict with national identity. The painting is clearly not Muslim but was painted by an Uyghur and depicts an Uyghur celebration (Table VIII). 48.43% of the participants disagree with the statement “Painting 4 is not Muslim — it is not a proper Uyghur painting.” This large segment of popular opinion reaffirms that national culture has preeminence over Islam when the two appear to be in conflict.

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Table VIII Uyghur or Muslim? Agree

Neither Agree nor Disagree

Disagree

Total

1. Nowruz is not Moslem, so it cannot be celebrated by Uyghurs

33 (37.5 %)

17 (19.32 %)

38 (43.18 %)

88

29. Picture 4 This is not Muslim — it is not a proper Uyghur painting

22 (25.6%)

22 (25.58 %)

42 (48.43 %)

86

30. Picture 4 I would be happy to have this painting in my home

35 (40.7 %)

28 (32.56 %)

23 (27.75 %)

86

There is some considerable conflict in every part of the Muslim world about how nationalistic identity can be reconciled with faith. Interviews with participants elicited comments such as “Nowruz celebrates our tradition of working in the fields right after the holiday, that is, it spring solstice, the celebration of the New Year,” and “those who reject the painting (Picture 4, Uyghur Meshrep) do not understand our national culture.” It is interesting that this group of young adults, all of whom have attended college, is divided about Nowruz celebration and Picture 4 (see Table VIII), two important elements of national culture. Among this educated group of Uyghurs, there is little agreement about authentic Uyghur culture at a time of rising Islamic conservatism. Finley argues three reasons for becoming Islam as a "key component of Uyghur consciousness and identity". First of all, Islamic revival has likely been a mean of preferable minority representation in Xinjiang. "Uyghurs have used Islam as a subtle means of representing their own identities (Zang:2013, 2061)." Islam plays an increasingly decisive role in the social and cultural life of the Uyghurs psychologically, sociologically and politically.

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Secondly, some Uyghurs have used "Islam to express social and political frustrations in a variety of areas‚ for example against Han Chinese and the government (Rudelson and Jankowiak, 2004:316)" which is "conducive to a dichotomy between us (Uyghurs) and them (Han Chinese) and has strengthened Uyghur identity and consciousness (Zang, 2013: 2062)." Thirdly, Smith Finley stressed the significance of Islam as a symbolic form of Uyghur opposition to the Chinese state (Finley, 2007:632). The more committed to Islamic values as an Uyghur is, the higher his or her Uyghur religious consciousness. Shichor claimed that "Islam had come to represent an integral part of Uyghur identity, but not necessarily the dominant characteristic‚ and that despite the impression that the influence of Islam was growing among Uyghurs‚ the reality is the opposite‚ due to strict government control over religion in Xinjiang (Shichor, 2005:127)." Hess also argued similarly that Islam had played a decisive role in defining "Uyghur national identity as a mechanism to unite the various Uyghur peoples against the encroachment of the Han Chinese (Hess 2009:83-84)." Zang reports that Fuller and Lipman (2004) suggested that "most prominent among those distinguishing Uyghur characteristics was Islam, and attending mosque and engaging in other public religious rituals were‚ consciously recognized as a means of reinforcing the distinctiveness of the Uyghur community from the dominant Han population and the Chinese state (Zang, 2013: 2061)." Schwartz (2012:5) states that "conformity values derive from the requirement that individuals inhibit inclinations that might disrupt and undermine smooth interaction and group functioning." As he define them, conformity values "emphasize self-restraint in everyday interaction, usually with close others. (obedient, self-discipline, politeness, honoring parents and elders) [loyal, responsible] (Schwartz, 2012:5)." Schwartz goes on and defining goals "for tradition as respect, commitment, and acceptance of the customs and ideas that one’s culture or religion provides." Social groups always and everywhere "develop practices, symbols, ideas, images and beliefs" that correspond to their community experiences and lifestyles. These are affirmed and represented as the customs and traditions of the group in the social construction of the community. Consistent with the

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claims of Durkheim and Parsons, the customs and traditions symbolize the mechanical solidarity of any given community, express the unique value of this solidarity, and contribute to its survival. "They often take the form of religious rites, beliefs, and norms of behavior (respect for tradition, humble, devout, accepting my portion in life) [moderate, spiritual life] (Schwartz, 2012:5)." In Schwartz's model, the codes of tradition and conformity are particularly close to each other in motivation: both "share the goal of subordinating the self to socially imposed phenomena." First of all, they differ in the objects to which the person's self is attached. Conformity brings subordination to those with whom one often interacts most, such as parents, teachers, and bosses. The state of being traditional ultimately entails subordination to more abstract frameworks such as religious and cultural traditions and ideas. As a result, fitness values strengthen responsiveness to current, possible changing expectations. Tradition values, on other hand, require responding to factual expectations from the past that tend to remain unchanged or more difficult to change. Smith Finley argues that "Uyghur identity results from the combination of pre-existing We-hood (shared group experiences), and the more recent Ushood (enmity towards the Other) vis-à-vis Han Chinese (Finley, 2007:629)." Dwyer (2005) also argued that "Uyghur language was valued by many Uyghurs as the central aspect of their identity" since it embodies almost all dimensions of a given culture: rituals, routines, activities, conversations, emotions, and traditional expressions. Zang reports that "Uyghurs often emphasize language as a distinguishing feature of their ethnic identity and, indeed, one specifically in opposition to the language and identity of the Han Chinese (Zang, 2013:2058)." Uyghurs gave importance to ethnic cultural features such as Uyghur language and Islam, which distinguish them from Han-Chinese. As Zang argues Ethnic identity and awareness levels are not necessarily related to the numerical size of a minority group (or majority group). "The levels of ethnic consciousness are dependent more on political, cultural, and religious factors than population size or ethnic composition (Zang, 2013:2070)." Religiosity and Uyghur language skills are two good determinants of Uyghur consciousness and traditional values. Value construct has alywas associated with actions abd pursuit of any value have outcomes that conflict with some values but are compatible with others (Schwartz, 2012:8). as Schwartz argues that "pursuing achievement values often conflicts with

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pursuing benevolence values". According to Schwartz, even seeking success by oneself tends to thwart actions that seek to improve the wellbeing of others in need of one's help. However, it is generally compatible to desire both achievement and power values. In his value model, the mere pursuit of personal success "for oneself tends to be strengthened and to be strengthened by actions aimed at strengthening one's own social position and authority over others." In another example Schwarz provides, "pursuing novelty and change (stimulation values) is likely to undermine preserving time-honored customs (tradition values). In contrast, "pursuing tradition values is here congruent with pursuing conformity values. Both motivate actions of submission to external expectations. "Actions taken to achieve values have, as expected, practical, psychological and social consequences. Practically, choosing an action alternative that promotes one value (e.g. taking drugs in a cultic rite—stimulation) may literally contravene or violate a competing value (obeying the precepts of one’s religion—tradition) (Schwartz, 2012:8)." Someone who chooses what to do may also feel that such alternative actions are psychologically and sociologically inappropriate. Furthermore, others may impose social sanctions by looking for practical and logical inconsistencies between an action and other values one chooses. Of course, individuals can more quickly accept and pursue competing values; but this does not seem possible with just one action. Rather, they do it with different actions, at different times and in different settings. Expectations that fit traditional values, Schwartz argues, are more abstract and absolute than interactive expectations of fitness values. Therefore, they demand a stronger and complete rejection of opposing values than ever before. Seeing values as organized in oppositions allows us to summarize the polarization between competing values. According to him, "One dimension contrasts “openness to change” and “conservation” values." This dimension captures "the conflict between values that emphasize independence of thought, action, and feelings and readiness for change (self-direction, stimulation) and values that emphasize order, selfrestriction, preservation of the past, and resistance to change (security, conformity, tradition). A second dimension contrasts “self-enhancement” and “self-transcendence” values. This dimension captures the conflict between values that emphasize concern for the welfare and interests of others (universalism, benevolence) and values that emphasize pursuit of one’s own interests and relative success and dominance over others (power, achievement). Hedonism shares

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elements of both openness to change and self-enhancement (Schwartz, 2012:8)." Dwyer pointed out that being Muslim Turkic was central to a modern Uyghur ethnic identity.

IV Conclusion The survey reviews issues that are central to Uyghur identity, cultural history and customary practice. The Uyghurs have little difficulty maintaining their identification with Islam and their Uyghur national heritage in statements about marrying within the ethnic group and following Islamic practice. On these, there is no evidence of a large division among the Uyghur. Identity conflict begins when Islamic customary practice meets the dramatic changes in the increasingly secular world. Solely on the issue of the protection of women, customary practices such as clothing regulations, arranged marriage, and recognition of a woman’s place in Muslim society demand cooperation from women if the status quo is to be maintained. This cooperation appears to run against the feelings and opinions of women (see Table II, especially Question 20). The questions concerning the “double standard”, in which one set of rules apply to women and another set of rules apply to men, are problematic for all of those who attempt to uphold conservative religious values and practices in the larger secular society. Educated Uyghur women will tolerate limitations over drinking alcohol, but limitations on Islamic dress may be asking too much. Many young single women and men object to the limitations on individual choice presented by arranged marriage. Some women in the survey do accept arranged marriage or accept the fact that their place is in the home. These are educated Uyghur women and far different from their counterparts in the countryside, but the future course of change is likely to produce a greater extension of this educated group. When ethnic and religious identities clash, the outcome is similarly uncertain. The Uyghurs inherited a substantial pre-Islamic ethnic heritage. The paintings by Zorem Yasem and Ghazi Ahmet in pictures 1–4 represent images that uphold Uyghur identity but also contain images that are decidedly non-Islamic. In that sense the Uyghurs are very much like other groups caught up in the changes in the Muslim world. A message has been

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understood that is not taught in school, that there is an ethnic identity that survives in the face of Islamic tradition and Chinese assimilationism. Uyghurs are a part of the awakening the Middle East and Asia today. If Uyghur society becomes more secularized, as the educated group of Uyghur society grows, the divisions that have been identified become more and more important. At the same time, the desire of the Chinese authorities to “strike hard” against Uyghur identity, discussed in Part II of this essay, elicits a response of Uyghur unity. This is an explosive issue in Xinjiang, and one in which the future cannot easily be determined.

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