Page 280 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

religious fundamentalism 1581

major political parties, or in Egypt under the Muslim media,mass higher education,and global commerce.But
Brotherhood, from which fundamentalisms spread to they can develop their own media of communication,
Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the larger Islamic world. their own separatist institutions, their own sets of stigmas
World historians have it as their mission to account for with which to label the moderates or other deviators. In
the long record of movements, and ask about the distant media especially,their difference from conservatives or tra-
origins of fundamentalism. However, students of the ditionalists is most apparent:They embrace the very mod-
movements will find that they rose as reactions to moder- ern instruments of communication—tapes,videos,radios,
nity, again “however defined.” Definitions may, for films, the Internet—that were agents of assaults against
instance, take into account critical assaults on sacred them.They fight modernity with modern technology.
canons, such as the Bible or the Quran.When conserva- Their spiritual weapons need ammunition. They all
tives perceive these as assaults from within their religious find it in shared sacred texts, usually from centuries
camp, they feel they must react and respond.Thus Mus- before, from times that they perceive to have been perfect
lim fundamentalists from the 1920s to the 1990s almost or that offered prototypes for living in a perfected world.
always directed their fire to what they perceived, not From these they select the elements that will most help
always inaccurately, as corrupt and repressive but only them fight off modernity; these become “the fundamen-
nominally Muslim governments. American Protestants tals.” They need strategies, which can range all the way
did not bother themselves in any primary way with from attempts at boycotting or demonstrating, from
Catholicism; they attacked their fellow Presbyterians or efforts at amending constitutions to revolution and
Baptists for treason to their own cause.The critical move- warfare—and, in the end, in some cases, terrorism in the
ments that inspired the responses developed early in the name of God. With these self-confident moves, which
twentieth century, or just before, so one could not have they experience or claim to be God-guided, they are cer-
had fundamentalism without this modern assault. tain about where history is going, however long it takes.
Just as often the reactive response may be against per- Fundamentalisms have to be efficient; what are called
ceived threats to one’s domain. Thus “westerners” as “free riders” and others half-committed are unwelcome.
“infidels” were seen to be subverting Iran in the 1970s, Participants have to be ready for total sacrifice of self. So
thus evoking purifying countermovements by the fol- they will pursue most zealously the group members they
lowers of the Shiite Ayatollah Khomeini. Fundamentalists perceive as compromisers, people who should know bet-
in the United States felt called to oppose liberal Protes- ter but who are too ready to barter too much away.Thus
tants allied with secular humanists and others who were an American Protestant fundamentalist chronicler named
critical of cherished practices such as issuing prayers in the evangelist Billy Graham the most dangerous Ameri-
public schools while these critics provided theological jus- can of the last century—because Graham knew better
tifications for disapproving moral expressions, for exam- than to appear on platforms with others who do not
ple, the legalizing of abortions. In Israel, if there seemed share all details of fundamentalist faith.
to be even a trace of accommodation by peace-seeking Finally, fundamentalists need all-or-nothing ideolo-
governmental administrations, movements like Gush gies. Scholars speak of these as “Manichaean,” after a
Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful) organized, demonstrated, dualistic religious movement: dark opposes light, with no
and built not-yet-approved settlements on the West Bank. shadows between them; it is God versus Satan, Christ
To pursue their aggressive missions in the name of versus Antichrist, Allah versus the infidels. There is no
God, fundamentalist movements must build at least fig- room for ambiguity or compromise in the minds of indi-
urative boundaries around their movements. They may viduals or in the approach of the group as a whole.
not keep outsiders or compromisers at a physical distance, Still problematic to the student of world history is the
as sectarians were able to do before the rise of mass claim that since the movements developed in reaction to