Religion As A Means For Political And Economic Gains - Essay Example

Carr & Saha (2001) thus [religious] "fundamentalism is a reactionary gesture in a world that is moving too fast toward conformity andunity; a world that demands tolerance for the sake of the "new world order." As a countermeasure to such a world, fundamentalism offers its adherents the consolation of a stable, discrete identity-which includes certain individuating markers as lifestyle management strategies and well-interpreted mythologies-over against the din of competing versions of the same." The problematique: people use religion as a means for political and economic gains. This statement will be tested through qualitative analysis of the existing literature on religion and a case study of Taliban. By looking into the question of whether Pakistan used Islam through Talibanization of Afghanistan essentially to stem the growing Pashtun nationalist movement, I will attempt to show that religion was used for political gains and virtually economic gains by a country which broke apart at the hands of a similar nationalist movement three decades ago. The outcome of this research can help to bring us closer to understanding religion and add to an ongoing debate on religion and its correlation with politics and economy. Keywords: religion, religious exploitation, religious values, fundamentalism, Taliban, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Pashtunistan Research Design in Anthropology (Final Project) 1. OBJECT The main function of religion is maintaining a desirable social order which protects the individuals and the society from physical and emotional harm caused by fellow members and "promises deliverance from deprivation" (Columbia Encyclopedia), but since it has the ability to gain a high level of acceptability among its followers, sometimes to the level of reverence, it demands a blind faith from who follow the rituals without reasoning. In their introduction to the first volume of the famed "Fundamentalism Project, " Fundamentalisms Observed, editors Martin Marty and R. Scott Appleby (1991) claim that the religious aspect of fundamentalism tends to express itself in the following four ways: as a "fighting for" the worldview associated with the religion; a "fighting with" the myths, traditions and doctrines created by the religion; a "fighting against" those who do not subscribe to the religion; and finally, a "fighting under" the god or other transcendent reference thought to be the religion's ultimate source. In under-developed societies religion has a stronger hold over the poor and the powerless who seek protection in its name and solace when they when they fail to achieve the desired goals in life. Since the clergy claim ownership of religion their role becomes the most important for the society as well as for the individual, sometimes even more important than God himself. Some high-priests become so powerful that their ascendancy rivals the powers of the rulers and other pressure groups. Thus religion commands absolute obedience from the poor and the powerless which enslaves them to the custodians of religion namely the clergy which in turn gives them the power to alter social behavior. More recently, such a phenomenon has come to be identified as "fundamentalism" whereby the clergy and associates have sought or achieved change of social, political and economic nature. "Any socio-political movement that requires of its members a strict adherence to specified "fundamentals" or doctrines; that seeks to impose those fundamentals, by persuasion or force, on any who are outside the movement; and that claims for its motivation in doing so a divine, or otherwise transcendentally grounded, mandate." (Carr & Saha, 2001) This has happened in some societies while elsewhere other social factors emerged to mollify or cancel the magic of the religion and its custodians such as interfaith or sectarian rivalry, rise of progressive forces which further the power of reasoning and science and so on. History is full of incidents where clergy using religious edicts and faith have tried to alter social behavior sometimes bringing about revolutionary changes in the society. One such incident in contemporary history is the rise and fall of Taliban in Afghanistan. There are numerous suggestions to describe their raison d'etre, some plausible others on the verge of mere propaganda. But one theory logically argued with evidence is that, "It was Pakistan that backed radical Islamists to protect itself from Afghan nationalist claims on Pakistani territory, which Islamabad feared, might pull apart the country. Indeed, for independent Pakistan's first three decades, nationalist "Pushtunistan" rhetoric from Afghanistan posed a direct threat to Pakistani territorial integrity. (Rubin, 1) II. STATEMENT OF PURPOSE Statistics show that the appeal of fundamentalist religion in the last two decades of the last century was very strong in the developing nations of Latin America. As evidence that the same conservative drift, is being felt around the world, consider the following statistics (World Pulse, 2000): - 5.4 million copies of the Book of Mormon were published in 2000, including 1.5 million in Spanish and 600,000 in Portuguese. This accounted for over 3 percent of all religious publishing world-wide. - The Watch Tower Society (Jehovah's Witnesses) grew 2 percent worldwide in 1999, reporting over 1 billion hours of missionary work and 330,000 baptisms. - In March 2000, conservative military police in Iran were ordered to round up women and men who flout dress codes or socialize with the opposite sex. They were also ordered to search for satellite dishes which can pick up Western programming. - For five years (1996-2001) in Afghanistan, strict Islamic policies under "Taliban" denied young girls the right to education and women the right to a divorce. - Egyptian women were recently granted the right to divorce without their husbands' approval. But while Egyptian men can get divorced automatically, a woman can do so only if she can prove the husband beat her, was a drug addict, was sterile, or refused to support the family. It is reported that few women are ever granted a divorce. The problematique consists of two parts: 1. Considering the growing appeal and unquestionable power of the religion do people use religion as means for political or economic gains, and: 2. Was Talibanization of Afghanistan an attempt by the beleaguered Pakistan to protect its political and/or economic interests Pakistan broke up in 1971 when a nationalist Bangla movement stood up against what it saw was their exploitation by the ethnic Punjabi rulers. When the movement reached a point where it was faced with the state army of Pakistan, it sought help from India which obliged happily thus a young nation was cut into half only after 25 years of existence as an independent state. The creation of Bangladesh resulted in political as well as economic loss for the state. Pakistan also inherited another nationalist movement which involved Pashtuns demanding a separate homeland called Pashtunistan. This movement had strong roots in Afghanistan and promised to be even more threatening than the Bangla movement. The state of Pakistan could not develop a sustainable and legitimate governance in the country whereby any secessionist tendency could be countered therefore considering the religious nature of the Afghan society Pakistan started working on a plan to create a fundamentalist force which would counter-balance the nationalist force. Hence, the birth of Taliban. III. SUBJECT The primary source of data for this study are the literature presented in books and journal articles while some official documents, government reports, interviews and a brief questionnaire will form the secondary data. A carefully selected group of people representing major tribes, age and gender in Afghanistan will be asked the following questions: 1. How do you perceive the Taliban Reformists or hegemonists. 2. What was the major source of legitimacy of Taliban Moral religious obligation because they presented themselves as custodians of Islam, actual social reform carried out in the name of Islam or political pressure 3. Do you believe that Pashtuns should have a separate homeland 4. Do you think Taliban curbed Pashtun nationalism 5. Do you think Taliban were an indigenous reformist movement or agents pursuing Pakistan's hegemonistic agenda 6. Did you feel obliged to accept Taliban because you thought it was your religious duty: were you afraid that if you did not support Taliban God would be angry Background We presume that Taliban was not an independent entity acting on their own but a "rag-tag" army put together by Pakistan for the purpose of controlling Afghanistan which incidentally is highly backward, strife-ridden thence highly religious and God-fearing. Pashtunistan Pashtunistan is what many Pashtun nationalists call the Pashtun-dominated areas of Pakistan. They believe the Pashtun people are within their rights to form their own nation because they share common heritage, culture, customs and religion. The Pashtuns in Afghanistan are the largest ethnic group in the country and are concentrated in the south and east, but nationalists have often included all of the western part of Pakistan as part of Pashtunistan. The Pakistani part of Pashtunistan comprises an area that runs from Chitral (in the north) to Sibi (in the southwest) and intentionally includes the ethnically mixed region of Balochistan. The Pashtun majority areas in western Pakistan include the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the northern portion of Balochistan. The main language spoken in the Pashtunistan region is Pushto. Thus, Pashtunistan can be defined in various ways depending upon the point of view of the political group involved. Pakistan has more than double the number of Pashtuns compared to Afghanistan. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 over 5 million refugees, mostly Pashtuns, migrated to Pakistan. Some reports suggest that the Pakistani intelligence exhorted and facilitated them to migrate to Pakistan. Most of them have permanently settled in Pakistan due to continuing violence and instability in Afghanistan. The Pashtunistan issue was inherited by the new state of Pakistan (1947) from the British colonial times. Although Pashtun nationalists movement has never gained dominance in the Pakistani society the rulers perceived it as a serious threat to the state especially after the separation of Bangladesh. Since Pakistan claims that the Bangladesh separatist movement derived from a strong Bangla nationalism which developed within years and broke the country into two was supported by India, its fear was strongly based that arch-rival India could exploit the Pashtun nationalist movement resulting in further break-up of the young nation. "In 1971, Pakistan fought a bloody and, ultimately unsuccessful, war to prevent the secession of East Pakistan which, backed by India, had declared its independence as Bangladesh. While Pakistan had been founded on the basis of Islamic unity, the 1971 war reinforced the point that in Pakistan, ethnicity trumped religion." (Rubin, 2000) Thus a means of stemming Pashtun nationalism had to be devised and that was suppressing nationalist feelings with the use of religion hence the phenomenal growth of seminaries called "madrassahs" in Pakistan which gave rise to the Taliban. What is Taliban Taliban began as a group of marauders or mercenaries at best in the strife-ridden Afghanistan. They were imparted with Islamic education at the seminaries of Pakistan with a clear emphasis on holy war to bring about an Islamic revolution by curbing the Western liberal influence. The setting under which they rose to power in 1996 and were removed in 2001 preceded the decade-long war against the Soviet occupation that had left Afghanistan with severe political, economic, and ecological problems. More than 1 million Afghans died in the war and millions became refugees in neighboring countries mostly in Pakistan. Economic production was drastically curtailed, and much of the land laid waste. The triumphant mujahideen or guerilla forces that fought against the Soviet occupation and freed their country were unable to unite the rival groups and a horde of tribes and Afghanistan became divided into spheres of control. Pashtuns or Pathans that form some 60 percent of Afghan population emerged as a much more powerful group than others. The Pashtun ethnic group or "nation" as they prefer to call themselves have double the number of people living in the Pakistani territory. A strong Pashtun nationalist movement claims that Pashtuns in Afghanistan and Pakistan are entitled to a separate homeland. LITERATURE REVIEW Contemporary world politics revolves around the question of religion: its utility as a means to seek solace for individual deprivations including poverty or its exploitation for political and/or economic gains. Therefore, a lot has been written about it ranging from the classic sources to theories propounded by present day writers. METHODOLOGY Any academic study requires a methodology to reach its conclusion: a research must have ways of producing and analyzing data so that a hypothesis can be tested and accepted or rejected. Thus, methodology is concerned with both the detailed research methods through which data are collected, and the more general philosophies upon which the collection and analysis of data are based (Haralambos and Holborn 1995:808). Stake (1997:7) claims that "the analysis of data is a matter of giving meaning to the first impressions as well as to the final compilations" by keeping our impressions, biases and observation out of it. What follows in this section is a brief description of the basis for choosing the qualitative approach to the study using official documents, interviews and questionnaire as a means of collecting data for this research. According to Creswell (1994:1 - 2), qualitative paradigm is an inquiry process of understanding a social or human problem, based on building a complex, holistic picture, informed with words, reporting detailed views of informants, and conducted in a natural setting. There are two widely discussed paradigms, that is, qualitative and quantitative paradigms to undertake research. For the purpose of this study, considering the nature of inquiry, I will use the qualitative paradigm. However, selecting an approach does mean that the researcher may not move away from the methods normally associated with that style. Each approach has its strengths and weaknesses, and each is particularly suitable for a particular context. The reason that did not choose quantitative paradigm is that it cannot tell what I want to know: the historical and anthropological realities on ground which would either support the hypothesis or reject it. Whereas a qualitative paradigm will help me bring out the true perspective whether Talibans used Islam to pursue political or economic gains out of Afghanistan: to seek insight rather than statistical analysis. There are clear distinctions between qualitative and quantitative research paradigms. Stake (1995:37) notes three major distinctions: 1. The distinction between explanation and understanding as the purpose of inquiry; 2. The distinction between personal and impersonal role of the researcher, and 3. A distinction between knowledge discovered and knowledge constructed. However, as Stake (1995:37) argues, the distinction is not directly related to difference in qualitative and quantitative data but a difference in searching for causes versus searching for events. In line with the above distinctions, quantitative researchers usually press for explanation and control, while qualitative researchers press for understanding the complex interrelationships among stakeholders. Thus the basic purpose of a qualitative paradigm is to describe and develop a special kind of understanding for a particular social situation, role, group, or interaction. Qualitative research is also analytical or interpretative in that the researcher must discern and then articulate subtle regularities within the data. Therefore, in a qualitative study, reduction, organization, manipulation, display, and above all contemplation of data are primary rather secondary activities. Locke et al. (1987:84) argue that, "most, though not all, qualitative research is naturalistic in that the researcher enters the world of participant(s) as it exists and obtains data without any deliberate intervention to alter the setting." Human beings are the primary data-gathering instruments. Thus, this kind of research is carried out in the natural setting or context of the entity studied. The objective is a reconstruction of experience as it may have happened naturally. In all formats for qualitative study, detailed descriptions of context and what people actually say or do form the basis for inductive rather that the deductive forms of analysis. That is, theory is created to explain the data rather than being collected to test a pre-established hypothesis. Robson (1993:61) argues that in the naturalistic inquiry inductive data analysis is preferred over deductive as it makes it easier to give a fuller description of the setting and brings out interactions between inquirer and respondents. In short, qualitative research is inductive because researchers rarely know the specifics of data analysis when they begin the inquiry. Unlike quantitative study in which all data is collected before analysis, in the qualitative approach data collection and analysis are a simultaneous process and complementary. A qualitative research is descriptive in that text (recorded words rather than numbers) is the common form of data. Thus media reports, government documents, field notes, interviews and transcripts are the primary source of information. In fact, the approach adopted and methods of data collection will depend on the nature of the inquiry and the type of information required. Generally speaking one may assert that there is no best approach or method; the selection of an approach and methods is usually driven by the research question. For analytic and interpretative purposes, this study will make use of a combination of methods. A combined method study is one in which the researcher uses multiple methods of data collection and analysis. The main advantage of employing multiple methods is that it permits triangulation. Creswell (1994:174) cites Greene et al, who advanced five purposes for combining methods in a single study: Triangulation in the classic sense of seeking convergence of results. Complementarities and differing facets of a phenomenon may emerge. In terms of process, one method is used sequentially to help inform the second method. Contradictions and fresh perspectives emerge. Mixed method adds scope and breadth to a study. Similarly, Haralambos and Holborn (1995:856) cite Bryman who suggests: Qualitative and quantitative data can be used to check the accuracy of the conclusion Qualitative research can be used to produce hypothesis which can be checked using quantitative methods The two approaches can be used together so that a more complete picture is produced. Qualitative research may be used to illuminate why variables are statistically correlated. In combined method study, methods might be drawn form within "methods approaches" such as different types of quantitative collection, or alternatively it might involve "between methods", drawing on qualitative and quantitative data collection procedures (Creswell 1994:174). In a way, triangulation can be seen as an important reason for combining qualitative and quantitative paradigms, as noted above. Robson (1993:383) also claims that "triangulation in its various guises, for example, using multiple methods, or obtaining information relevant to a topic from several informants, is an indispensable tool in real world enquiry." He argues that, "it is particularly valuable in the analysis of qualitative data where the trustworthiness of the data is always a worry. It provides a means of testing one source of information against other sources. Both correspondences and discrepancies are of value" (Robson 1993:383). In other words, if two sources of information give the researcher the same evidence then, to some extent, they cross-validate each other, and if there is a discrepancy, its investigation may help in explaining the phenomenon. Though using more than one method in an investigation can have advantages, it is time consuming. Similarly, though employing multiple methods to a single study might enable the researcher to illuminate or nullify some extraneous influences, results across methods do add to confusion and uncertainty. SIGNIFICANCE The reason I wish to undertake this research is to contribute to an ongoing debate in the power of religion. My purpose is to show that religion is essentially a positive phenomenon but the faith aspect has made it vulnerable to exploitation for political and/or economic gains. The case of Taliban is selected to test the hypethesis. The results of this project could help focus further research, whether the results are positive or negative my research will add to the ongoing debate on an issue which is at the centre of contemporary international relations. TEST IMPLICATIONS Primary and secondary sources will allow me to analyze the data and to test my hypothesis which states that people do use religion as a means for political and economic gains and that the use of Taliban by Pakistan to control Afghanistan and the growing nationalistic movement is a case in point. The qualitative analysis supported by arguments may also show that this was not the case. That the Taliban was an independent and indigenous movement seriously interested in an Islamic society. Or that the nationalist movement still exists to threaten the state of Pakistan. Works Cited Ahmed, Akbar S. Resistance and Control in Pakistan. New York: Routledge, 2004. Bromley, David G., and J. Gordon Melton, eds. Cults, Religion, and Violence. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Davidson, Lawrence. Islamic Fundamentalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998. D.Brunn, Stanley, ed. 11 September and Its Aftermath: The Geopolitics of Terror. London: Frank Cass, 2004. Edwards, David B. Before Taliban: Genealogies of the Afghan Jihad. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002. Elias, Jamal J. Islam. London: Routledge, 1999. Ellis, Deborah. Women of the Afghan War. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2000. Esposito, John L. The Islamic Threat Myth or Reality. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Esposito, John L. Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Haralambos, M. and Holborn, M. 1995. Sociology: Themes and Perspectives. London: Harper Hoveyda, Fereydoun. The Broken Crescent: The "Threat" of Militant Islamic Fundamentalism. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998. Keyes, Charles F., Laurel Kendall, and Helen Hardacre, eds. Asian Visions of Authority: Religion and the Modern States of East and Southeast Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994. King, Irving. The Development of Religion: A Study in Anthropology and Social Psychology. New York: Macmillan, 1910. Milton-Edwards, Beverly. Islamic Fundamentalism since 1945. New York: Routledge, 2004. Marty, Martin and Appleby, Scott (eds.), Fundamentalisms Observed, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991, pp. ix, x. Nasr, Seyyed Vali Reza. Islamic Leviathan: Islam and the Making of State Power. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. The Politics of Religion and Social Change: Religion and the Political Order. Ed. Anson Shupe and Jeffrey K. Hadden. 1st ed. Vol. 2. New York: Paragon House, 1988. Michael Rubin, "Who is Responsible for the Taliban" Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol 6, No. 1, March 2002 Saha, Santosh C., and Thomas K. Carr, eds. Religious Fundamentalism in Developing Countries. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001. Stake, R. E. 1995. The Art of Case Study Research. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications Verkamp, Bernard J. The Evolution of Religion: A Re-Examination. Scranton, PA: University of Scranton Press, 1995. Wickhman, Carrie Rosefsky. Mobilizing Islam: Religion, Activism, and Political Change in Egypt. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. World Pulse, 63 (April 7, 2000), p. 6-14. Read More