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Public 157

will be relevant only with respect to this very specific time and religious and
cultural context (Adams 2006).
It would be foolish to let the idea of statehood remain static in our
thinking about the the public. The evolution of trading associations and
continental organizations such as the European Union are changing the
definition of these boundaries. In discussing public space as occasioned by
the European Parliament, Fossum reworks the phrase as a “sphere of publics”
(Fossum and Schlesinger 2007: 283). National churches in both legislative
and de facto terms are being challenged not only by the presence of other
religious publics but by those who would prefer governance in Europe to be
reimagined in purely secular terms (Fossum and Schlesinger 2007: 283–4;
Adams 2006: 4).
Despite these challenges, I would submit that the the public and religious
publics do continue. And I would suggest the concept of social sin as
providing an iterative sense of what constitutes the new the public as created
by media. In Catholic teaching, social sin stems from individual actions
that eventually make others “accomplices” and so create “structures of sin”
(Catholic Church 1999: 1869; cf. Justice in the World 1971).
Muslims and non-Muslims were generally outraged by photos published
in 2004 showing the abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib. It did not matter
much how individuals saw the photos, whether online at a site created by
and for Muslims or via an issue of The New Yorker. I would argue that the
most important fact was that the photos became the water cooler–water well
conversation throughout the global village. The visceral reaction was that no
human being should suffer at the hands of another in this way.
I would further suggest that the story entered the realm of the global
public because of widespread recognition that this was particularly horrible
because of the Islamic emphasis on modesty. Whether this realization came
because one had heard the headscarf debates or had seen something about
Muslim sexual mores in a film or, indeed, because one was a member of
the ummah, the response is the same. No one in the global public—but
particularly no one from a religious public that sets such store on modesty—
should be treated this way.
The reaction to protests led by Buddhist monks in Burma during 2007 is
similar. Though there would be general agreement that people deserve to
live free from military repression, the particular fact that demonstrations
led by men in saffron robes ended in violence is important (cf. The
Economist 2007). Whether the conviction comes from watching Brad
Pitt in Seven Years in Tibet or because there’s a temple down the street is
inconsequential. That anyone in the global public should be assaulted in
this way is wrong, but the fact that these are men who embody nonviolence
makes this particularly so.