Dealing with religious and non-religious Fundamentalism

international | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis Friday May 05, 2006 16:09 by Sheikh Dr. Shaheed Satardien - Interfaith Roundtable

What is Fundamentalism and what is its Future?

Recent events in Iraq, Denmark, Paris and many other countries demonstrate the power of conviction as a motivator for action. When that conviction lacks the mollifying factor of “perspective” it can motivate actions that are destructive for the person and the community at large.

The Inter-faith Roundtable and saor-Ollscoil na hEireann, have announced the 2nd Annual Religious Peace Conference in St. Brigid’s Community Centre, Blancardstown, Dublin 15 on Saturday 10th June ‘06 from 8.30am to 4.30pm.

The inaugural conference last year was very successful in bringing together religious scholars, academics, politicians, members of different faith communities and the media, both national and international, to address issues of peace between creeds and adherents of creeds.

This year’s conference will consider the theme:

‘Fundamentalism in Religions: Faith, Scope and Clarity’

Recent events in Iraq, Denmark, Paris and many other countries demonstrate the power of conviction as a motivator for action. When that conviction lacks the mollifying factor of “perspective” it can motivate actions that are destructive for the person and the community at large.

“Fundamentalism” as it is popularly understood (rather than its academic description) could be said to be a certainty of conviction that brooks no possibility of being incorrect. Not only does a person of such convictions believe that he/she must be right, but that everyone who does not share such fervour must be wrong, and must be told so, sometimes forcefully. This depth of conviction can be plumbed for any belief system, whether religious, political, philosophical or otherwise.

Thus we can have the fundamentalist secularist who insists that religion does not belong within public discourse and must be relegated to the private sphere. We have the economic fundamentalist who insists that Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Keynes or Friedman are the gurus of financial success. We have the political fundamentalists who insist that Civil War politics from the 1920s must always determine the nature of a government. And we have the religious believers who know that everyone else is going to hell.

Fundamentalism in religion has always been with us, from the Fethard-on- Sea controversy, to the Crusades, from the Taliban to the Inquisition, from the Salem witch trials to Meggido. But such fervour was generally localised. Now its influence is global, and increasingly political.

We have recently had the spectacle of a prominent Christian leader in the US calling for the “taking out” of the President of Venezuela and the President of Iran calling for the eradication of Israel.

The conference will seek to address the uncomfortable questions where an intensity of belief collides with the realpolitik of living in contemporary society.

Thus what can be the response from a liberal democracy, exercising its hard-won freedoms, to the protests of a persecuted minority grievously insulted by the exercise of those freedoms?

How does a faith community respond to lawful secular criticism that cuts to the heart of its convictions and denigrates its teachings?

How can fundamentalists, of any persuasion, peacefully co-exist within the non-believing community?

Have we lessons to learn from the positive aspects of fundamentalism, the clear-cut morality, the genuine desire to make the world a better place?

What is the future of Fundamentalism? Will it mutate? Will its DNA of certainty survive scientific progress or contemporary Western society?

These are just some of the issues the conference will address.

Our world is changing at a phenomenal rate. Much has been made of economic globalisation, but perhaps the greatest change has been the globalisation of ideas. Fundamentalism in religion has gone global and Ireland will not be quarantined from the fall-out.