July 15, 2018 | Farooq Tariq

With the fortunate exemption of Nepal, various forms and formations of religious fundamentalism is finding a considerable social and political support and space in all countries of South Asia. The rise of Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist religious fundamentalism have made the lives of the millions miserable and pushing them further to chronic poverty and ignorance. It has emerged as one of the major challenges confronting the governments and people in South Asia.

Religious Fundamentalism and terrorism has emerged as one of the most dangerous challenge to the progressive and democratic forces not only in Asia particularly, it has also taken grip on several European countries. The spread of fundamentalism has resulted in lynching religious minorities into death, mass migration and terrorist attacks on regular basis in Asia and Europe.

The pace of Islamist regression since 9/11 attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq has accelerated; extremism, fundamentalism and fanaticism increased immeasurably in the Indian sub-continent and Muslim countries.

During the cold war, the USSR was only an emblem of the enemy of the capitalist society. Nationalism, humanism, secularism, and socialism were also enemies. Muslim fundamentalists collaborated with the West because they too were scared of liberal and secular ideas and the West happily promoted these reactionary forces as a counter force to Socialism and progressive nationalism.

Breeding of religious fundamentalism in Muslim countries by the imperialist forces was their greatest political and organization blunder in forming strategies to safe capitalism from opposite ideologies.

Religious fundamentalism is not just a phenomena spread by individuals, groups, mosques, madrassas or cluster of these groups: they were able to use the state powers like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan, Afghanistan, sometimes for a short period and in other cases, they have consolidated their grip on state structures. The aim is not to spread it to one continent or over the entire world, but they will continue the struggle for implementation of their political Islamic agenda till the “judgment day”.

Fundamentalism of whatever variety-Islamic, Hindutva, Christian or Jewish, is always a reactionary force. Fundamentalists are intolerant of everybody else. They reject evolution and theories on the origin of life.

Fundamentalism is counter-modernist, is generally assertive, clamorous, and often violent, is “the Chosen”, “the Elect”, “the Saved” and as such, they are “privileged” or “burdened” with a special mission on behalf of their God and for the benefit of the world.

Religious Fundamentalism is anti-science by nature or science is the outcome of materialist philosophy and the religion is outcome of idealism so there is historical contradiction between science and religion. Progress in science is the retreat of the religion.

Islamic fundamentalism is now a reactionary, nonscientific movement aimed at returning society to a centuries-old social set-up, defying all material and historical factors. It is an attempt to roll back the wheel of history. Fundamentalism finds its roots in the backwardness of society, social deprivation, a low level of consciousness, poverty, and ignorance.

Religious fundamentalism is a new form of fascism which has carried out some of the worst atrocities. Suicidal attacks have become the norm. Muslim Fundamentalist groups have a political agenda – a Muslim world. Fundamentalism is a deep-rooted philosophy that acts on the minds of its adherers. Its propaganda works through education and training.

The state is ambiguous when it accepts a state religion as well as adheres to secularism in the constitution as in Bangladesh. Pakistan and Maldives are Islamic republics. Sri Lankan constitution gives primacy to Buddhism above all other religions. India and Nepal are secular republics. However, secularism in India has been dealt a severe below by the rise of Hindutva.

Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism in shape of ISIS, Al-Qaida, Bokoharam, Taliban and many more are the examples of violent incident of unprecedented level. Rashtariya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Vishva Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal are the major players of Hindu violent and nonviolent fundamentalism in India. This has resulted in increased violent action against Muslim minority and increased insecurity among the religious minorities in India.

Rohingya Muslim’s persecution by the Buddhist majority in Myanmar (Burma) is also another instance of violent Fundamentalism. Thousands have to migrate to Bangladesh in most inhuman conditions in one of the worst human migration crisis.

Though none of the eight south Asian countries have monarchy or military dictatorship today, however; there is growing militarization in the region. Religious fundamentalism and political use of religion have emerged as independent social and political forces with might of their own. They are in alliance with state apparatus rendering the functioning of non-party politics of secular and non-religious kind untenable.

The rise in relations between some countries are also matched by the souring relations between erstwhile neighbors. Afghan citizens who were once welcome in Pakistan as pilgrims, traders and students face severe restriction because the Pakistani state believes that Afghanistan is the breeding ground of terrorism and vice versa. A visa regime is been installed for the citizens of Pakistan, Bangladesh and India to restrict the social movements to flourish in these countries.

Countering Religious fundamentalism

The way out of the uneasy relation of state with religious fundamentalism is opening the borders to people, state freezing all relation with fundamentalists, nationalizing madrassas which were once centers of religious training and halt militarization of civilian life.

One way to counter the religious culture of fundamentalism is with a secular culture of solidarity. This is especially relevant since fundamentalism has an international angle to it. The use of a softer version of religion to counter a harder version is mistaken. We need to take up the issues of inequalities and exploitation. We should be able to say, a Muslim worker is being exploited by a Muslim Capitalist. So, it is not Islam we need to focus on. We are not against Islam or any religion but against the use of religion for political means. This is different from old Marxists approaches.

Fundamentalists are not anti-imperialists, hence no alliances with religious or religious extremist forces at any level.

The use of force to eliminate fundamentalism is a myth. There is no military solution to stop the rise of religious fundamentalism. It is a political struggle between the two rival camps. A whole package is needed. The state must break all links with fanatic’s groups. The mindset that religious fundamentalists are “our own brothers, our own people, our security line and guarantee against “Hindus”, some are bad and some are good” and so on must be changed. The conspiracy theories are most favorable arguments among the religious right wingers. They do not want to face the reality.

There is no short cut to end religious fundamentalism. It has to be a political fight with dramatic reforms in education, health and working realities in most South Asian countries. Starting from nationalization of madrassas, it must go on to provide free education, health, social security and transport as one of most effective means to counter fundamentalism.

We have reached a new maximum on military budgets in the world. SIPRI estimates that global military spending was 1,739 billion dollars in 2017. Year after year the main five military budgets are from USA, China, Saudi Arabia Russia, India, followed mainly by Western Europe (UK, Germany, France). Japan and South Korea close to the top ten list.

Farooq Tariq
General Secretary
Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee
Spokesperson
Awami Workers Party Pakistan
farooqtariq@hotmail.com
www.farooqtariq.org
12/1/2018