The basic issue facing us is whether we should "render unto Caesar
the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things which are
God's." In other words, can the temporal be separated from the
spiritual? If, for what¬ever reason, we believe that such a
separation is impossible, we are led to the conclusion that in a
divine order, religion should dominate civic orga¬nization. We
must then consider a theocratic state as legitimate. The
ques¬tion in this case is whether theocratic states can
respect minorities which hold a different religion from that of the
state, or have no religion at all.
If, on the other hand, we consider that separation between the
spiritual and the temporal is desirable and possible, we are forced
to deal with the role of a secular state. Can one maintain
political ethics without a spiritual basis, or earthly laws without
transcendental affirmation? Or is the role of the state merely to
organize the coexistence of the various religious
com¬munities? Are the ethics of a godless, secular state
legitimate and effective?
There are at least two examples of pure theocracies in the world:
Iran, which practices Shi'ite Islam, and Saudi Arabia, which
practices Sunni Islam. There are also less "pure" examples in
Islamic states and in Israel, where theocracy has been somewhat
modified by the influence of, or attempt at, democracy. Iran is
seen on occasion to persecute its minorities while Saudi Arabia
merely forbids worship by any faith except the state religion. This
state religion is intolerant because it takes itself to be divine
and universal, leaning not only to classifying people along ethnic
and reli¬gious lines, but even to religious and ethnic
cleansing. One could claim that the totalitarian communist states
practiced a state religion since only the priests of their single
party where considered capable of revealing the cor¬rect sense
of history.
On the other hand, in the Western world, we have witnessed
anti-theo¬cratic movement, with the English Revolution in
1679, the American Revolution in 1787 and the French Revolution in
1789. From the Habeas Corpus in England to the Declaration of
Rights of Man and the Citizen in France emerged the machinery for
the death sentence passed on God. A denial of God as head of state
was proclaimed.
Religious and Secular
It is important to note that we are speaking of the God of
monotheism. If one is to believe the Indian specialist Lakshmi
Kapani, India did not need our Western revolutions in order to
separate the spiritual from the tempo¬ral. There is nothing in
the sacred writings of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism or Sikhism which
regulates the lives of the citizens, nothing com¬parable to
the Jewish Torah, the Catholic doctrines or the Muslim Sharia. Of
course, this does not mean that people are not deeply imbued with
reli¬gion in their daily lives. In fact, rather the opposite
is true.
The West and India enjoy a form of secularity which falls in line
with the definition of religion in Greek and Roman antiquity: the
gods were omnipresent but they were not necessarily obeyed. The
great French schol¬ar Sylvain Levi has pointed out that there
is nothing in the sacred writings of Eastern religions to incite
intolerance, even less violence. Nevertheless, the Indian state is
seen to be reduced to arbitrating in so-called wars of
reli¬gion. The experts should decide whether the Indian
fundamentalism stems from reaction to an identity threatened by
imported monotheism, albeit now secular.
In the U.S.A. it appears that religion is totally separated from
the state although almost all its citizens are organized into
religious communities. The American nation triumphed over two
original sins (the slave trade and the massacre of the Native
people), as well as the initial tragedy of the War of Independence,
by dint of the Puritan dynamism of its capitalist victors. It is
somewhat strange that this nation-state's catechism should turn
sterile ("the American dream") and become a colorless and neutral
legal admin¬istrator of inter-community conflicts. After the
collapse of the U.S.S.R., the American superpower is wondering if
its citizens have less in common than they have differences. They
all come together under one banner: that of coexistence.
In the French example, or what is left of it, for it is threatened
from all sides, religion is also separate from the state, but the
beheading of Louis XVI meant more than just a symbolic death for
the godhead of the state. The individual transformed into a citizen
was born in France between 1789 and 1791. Because those rallying
against the Catholic Church remained mistrustful of the people,
almost two centuries went by before the citizen reached
maturity.
Alarming Trend
In this revolutionary concept, the individual is sovereign without
regard to religion, origins, environment, and social class. The
republican state is the expression of popular sovereignty by free
and equal individuals. Now, communities are again springing up in
France, lobbying for some reform or other. This is an alarming
trend, as we can see from recent, ludicrous and convulsive
consequences (each one different from the other) in the U.S.A., in
Lebanon, and even worse, in Yugoslavia. We are in the age of
communitarianism. Why is this so?
First, we have forgotten that human beings are religious beings.
They are, and have always been, social and religious beings. The
individual was an invention, a construction, who appeared late in
human history and was preceded by the community without which s/he
cannot exist. The indi¬vidual keeps wanting to get away from
it but conversely, keeps wanting to get back into it. Marx thought
that nations and religions were doomed by history but both concepts
should be accepted as permanent within human¬ity. The
conclusion is that to assail an individual in integrating into
his/her religious community causes a reaction or even a regression.
"Religious community" does not imply only a religious belief, but a
certain balance in a patriarchal society imbued with
religiosity.
Second, we have been going through a crisis of reason, linked to
the emergence of the individual. The cults of reason and of
"organized histo¬ry" and the belief in scientific progress are
worshiped in a religious man¬ner. The cult of reason has even
led to totalitarian ideologies, including the Russian-style
chauvinism of Stalin's successors. Emmanuel Levinas believes that
the crisis of reason stems from the way in which two
ideolo¬gies of progress ended up in tyranny: liberalism in
Nazism, communism in Stalinism. "World wars and local conflicts,
National Socialism, Bolshevism, the concentration camps, the gas
chambers, nuclear arsenals, terrorism and unemployment - it is all
too much for one generation, even if it was a mere witness." To
this one must add the horrors of colonization and decolonization.
The crisis of reason leads to either a temporary nihilism or a
permanent need for transcendence.
Third, and most important, our generation has snatched from God all
civic powers, and taken upon itself the ability to destroy humanity
and to recre¬ate it and reproduce it ad infinitum. Space and
time are eliminated and our images are universal. Though we know
that there is only one earth, one world, one planet, we have no
idea what kind of new being will emerge from this media sphere. It
is disconcerting from a philosophic point of view to think that
nothing human can remain unknown to us. However, aware¬ness of
the unique nature of the world does not mean achieving unity. Quite
the opposite: the upheavals we must suffer before we achieve this
unity will be terrifying.
Population movements, a soaring birthrate, the mingling of peoples,
the mixture of cultures and the babble of the world's languages
should remind us that Babel was a curse and not a tribute to
multilingual cosmopoli¬tanism. The tower of Babel is a tower
of punishment and misery.
Precarious Democracy
So, wondering what we are and preferring to be what we were (or
thought we were), we run after so-called "authenticity." This often
means rein¬venting our own roots and claiming to rediscover
our parents' religion: a religion whose message we sometimes use to
reject others. The need for something religious is felt by some as
a lack and by others as nostalgia, perhaps regret over a lost world
of continuity. In ancient Greece, in India, and in Christianity,
there are rites which imply a need to return to the sup¬posed
era of fundamental myths, now reconstructed for new
circumstances.
Contemplating the reasons behind the force of communitarianism, we
can assess the fragility of the regimes which claim to counter or
ignore it. We can also understand how even the most totalitarian
systems can assure their future if they manage to satisfy the basic
religious needs of the original human being. The essence of
despotism and the precarious nature of democracy are evident.
The religious and psycho-sociologist Rene Girard has indicated that
the enemy is one's brother, the next person, what the Ten
Commandments call one's neighbor. If we are entreated to love our
neighbor as ourselves, this is precisely because s/he is the one we
are most likely to treat as a rival and thus consider hostile. The
person who is most like me but not me is my enemy. Thus fratricide
is the only real war. We only hate the only real war. We only
thoroughly hate what we know best, what is just a little different
from us (any little difference will do). And so, rather than
spontaneity in love, love demands self-restraint and it is learning
to love which becomes the inheritance of Abraham and of the
Judeo-Christian tradition.
Adapting the reflexes observed between individuals to the relations
between religions, races and nations, we arrive at the Balkan
proverb: We have no friends. We just have allies among the enemies
of our enemies. We are in no way obliged to share such a
pessimistic interpretation but it helps to remind us that belief
often corrected what was imperfect in "natural reli¬gion."
What is taken as a return to religion is often a return to what
preced¬ed religion and which faith set out to correct. However
numerous are the reasons for the naturally religious aspect of the
human being, the reasons for resisting the drift back to nature are
even more numerous. But in any case, we must oppose giving up the
separation of religion and politics.
While the religious act colors and nourishes the political act,
religion on its own cannot inspire the political organization of a
city. The indomitable nature of the religious act must be taken
into account but it is quite anoth¬er thing to submit to
people's institutions, the fruits of having achieved human dignity,
to any manifestation of religious belief.
How then can the powerful religious nature of human beings be
resist¬ed? Montesquieu provided an answer when he said: "If I
knew something of use to me, but detrimental to my family, I would
chase it from my mind. If I knew something useful to my family but
not to my country, I would try to forget it. If I knew something
useful to my country, but detrimental to Europe, or useful to
Europe but detrimental to humanity, I would consid¬er it a
crime to forget it."
This paper was originally presented to the 1994 "Symposium on
Religion and Politics" at the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, New
Delhi.