Sacralizing the Secular. The Ethno-fundamentalist movements

AutorEnzo Pace
CargoProfessor de Sociologia e Sociologia da Religião na Universidade de Pádua, Itália
Páginas403-427
http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175-7984.2017v16n36p403
403403 – 427
Sacralizing the Secular. The
Ethno-fundamentalist movements
Enzo Pace1
Abstract
Religious fundamentalist movements regard the secular state as an enemy because it claims to
codify its power as if God did not exist. Those movements consider their religion the repository
of absolute truth, the ultimate source legitimizing human laws. Therefore, although they are post-
secular, at the same time they endeavor to transform religious principles into political agendas.
Indeed, militants often act in accordance with political objectives in the attempt to assert the
primacy of their own faith over that of others. They move within contemporary societies in the
name of a radical political theology. The main arguments based on two case studies: Bodu Bala
Sena in Sri Lanka and the movements for the Hindutva in India.
Keywords: Fundamentalism. Ethno-nationalism. Secular state.
Introduction
is article contains some reections on the links between secularization,
the secular state and fundamentalism. Religious fundamentalist movements,
which act on behalf and in defense of an absolute transcendent truth,
regard the secular state as an enemy because it claims to codify its power
etsi Deus non daretur2, that is, independently of any religious legitimation.
ose movements consider their religion the repository of absolute truth, the
ultimate source legitimizing human laws. Hence the paradox of their beliefs
1 Professor de Sociologia e Sociologia da Religião na Universidade de Pádua (Itália), onde dirige o departamento
de sociologia (DELETE). Professor visitante na École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris) e antigo
presidente da Sociedade Internacional para a Sociologia das Religiões (ISSR/SISR).
2 “As if God did not exist” was the maxim used by Hugo Grotius in his important work De iure belli ac pacis
which was f‌irst published in 1625. It refers to the natural law that is considered valid regardless of the existence
of God. The maxim has been conventionally extrapolated by Catholic Popes who have criticized secular
states that do not legitimize their authority and power in connection to God or a religious principle and by
philosophers and politicians who have argued since the time of the Enlightenment in favor of the laïcité.
Sacralizing the Secular. The Ethno-fundamentalist movements | Enzo Pace
404 403 – 427
and actions: although they are post-secular, at the same time they endeavor to
transform religious principles into political agendas. Indeed, militants often
act in accordance with political objectives in the attempt to assert the primacy
of their own faith over that of others. It is in this respect that fundamentalist
movements are considered post-secular (that is, they go beyond the secular
state); they nevertheless also secularize religious ideas into political strategies.
In a word, they move within contemporary societies in the name of a radical
political theology. If, according to Carl Schmitt (1927, 1929), the modern
political sphere can be considered a eld of human action characterized by a
Freund (friend) and Feind (enemy) polarity, fundamentalist movements share
this radical perspective which is based on religious beliefs that already contain
a germ of secularization.
Politics is the means by which the friend-foe war is played out in
accordance with a literal approach to the sacred texts. It is a communicative
action that portrays the dramaturgical confrontation between truth and
falsehood and between good and evil in political terms. e eschatological
polemos (war/battle) narrated in a sacred text becomes the linguistic and
communicative code that expresses without any cultural mediation or moral
scruples the language of faith through political doctrine. Fundamentalist
movements have taken on the task of provoking a serious crisis in certain
forms of secular states, rst in the modern era in Europe and the United
States and, later, in particular after the Second World War, in post-colonial
countries. ere can be no question that Gandhi and Nehru never intended
to build a nation of Hindū people founded on the complex system of religious
beliefs that we in the West have come to call Hinduism. e fathers of modern
India were inclined towards a secular, democratic, non-denominational state3.
3 Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891-1956), one of the fathers of the Indian Constitution, was a politician,
philosopher and anthropologist who fought against the chaturvarna (the caste-based) system He chaired the
Parliamentary commission charged with editing the Constitution in 1947 (adopted two years later). Ambedkar,
who studied the origins of the shudra e dalit caste system based on Veda scriptures, embraced Buddhism and
popularized the core message of Gautama Shakyamuni (Buddha). Buddhism became a liberation theology
for him, a social religious manifesto for emancipating scheduled and tribes castes from the segregation to
which they were condemned in the name of a religion (Hinduism). While drafting the Constitution, Ambedkar
incoporated not only European models but also some organizational guidelines utilized by the Buddhist
sangha (association or community), i.e. rules of conduct, practices, disciplinary regulations and duties such
as following a particular order before taking a decision by vote. To learn more about the social Buddhism
proposed by this prominent Indian intellectual (Ambedkar, 1987, 2011).

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