Terrorism, faith and fear

I say again: A terrorist is a criminal.

Anders Behring Breivik ought not to be called a Christian terrorist. There is no God is such mass murderous insanity. Violence committed in the name of any god, in the name of any religion is deception. There is no such thing as a Muslim terrorist. There is no such thing as a Christian terrorist.

Violent conflict between religious groups, often misunderstood as religious conflict, is actually in-group/out-group conflict where religion is the defining aspect of the group. The violence has little to do with religious doctrine and more to do with the social, political, economic status of the group. It seems that Breivik considered himself more a cultural Christian than a religious Christian. He considered himself a martyr in the cause of punishing those who have allowed multiculturalism in Europe.

Beyond the question of the role of religion in this tragedy is the relationship between religion and culture. The late African scholar Cheikh Anta Diop, writing in his book ”Civilization or Barbarism: an Authentic Anthropology”, describes three factors in defining cultural identity—historical, linguistic and psychological. There is no question that Christianity is a very important part of European history. Wars between Christians and Muslims, the Crusades, had a profound effect on the Europe we know today. The westward expansion of the Ottoman Empire and the presence of the Moors in Spain many centuries ago live in the historical memory of many Europeans.

Yet, the historical memory of Muslim immigrants is not the same memory, and certainly it does not represent the same perspective. According to Diop: “In the face of cultural aggression of all sorts, in the face of all disintegrating factors of the outside world, the most efficient cultural weapon with which a people can arm itself is this feeling of historical continuity.”

Breivik as well as many others in Europe are no doubt feeling threatened by a kind of “cultural aggression.” It is not the violent aggression of earlier historical time, but they look around themselves and see strangers who have come as guest workers or who have come from former colonies or who have come searching for freedom from social, political, economic and even religious oppression. Historical continuity, including the importance of Christianity to the culture, becomes a way to maintain equilibrium.

Religion can also become a unifying force within the context of the linguistic factor of cultural formation because shared religious experience provides shared expressions and shard experiences that people of the same culture, mediated through both history and language understand. There is the shared experience of Christmas and Easter or hearing church bells, passing weddings and funerals spilling out from the steps of churches. Christians understand what it means that every human being must bear her/his own cross.

The psychological factors of culture are difficult to grasp. They are ways that a people understand its collective character, the moral virtues that have helped the group navigate history. This psychological understanding can be influenced by outmoded, cramped, and racialist science and philosophy. To excavate the unifying cultural psychological factor, Diop suggests asking the following question:

“What are the psychological and cultural invariants that political and social revolutions, even the most radical ones, leave in tact, not only among the people, but among the very leaders of the revolution?” (Emphasis Diop’s)

Further, when thinking about how a multicultural reality can enrich societies all over the world, when thinking about how people of different cultures can live together in harmony, the question becomes: what ways of being in the world are specific to a particular culture at a particular historical moment, and what challenges and responses to the human condition are universal?

The work of meaning, of making or finding definitions that define our individual selves is a human problem. Individuals may define themselves in relation to a dominant group and see themselves as part of a powerful majority. When these individuals see a threat to the power and the domination of the group, they may feel personally threatened. Fear of annihilation is an aspect of the human condition that every human individual must face.

Fear feeds fear. Some people address their fears through politics or through artistic presentation. Religion can be a way to overcome this fear. However, the violent destruction of the Other, or even more incredible, the mass killing of people who are like oneself for the sake some sick vengeance hoping to inspire more killing of the Other that one perceives as a threat, is its own brand of madness. It is an insane response to the ordinary challenges of life.

American philosopher William James writes in his book “The Varieties of Religious Experience:” “The lunatic’s visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact. Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every individual existence goes out in lonely spasm of helpless agony. If you protest, my friend, wait till you arrive there yourself.”

When we see the Other as a fellow traveler, as a human being finding her/his own way to live through and overcome loneliness and helpless agony, when we determine what we can learn from Other cultures, Other religions, Other languages, Other minds that will help us survive with joy, when we let our love overcome our fear, then there will be less fear feeding insane mass murderous fear. There will be no air for terrorists to breathe.

Valerie Elverton Dixon  | Jul 29, 2011 9:11 AM