AMHP 22A01 - Religion, Politics and Violence

Why do we locate Muslim countries in the Arab world when the first four most populous Muslim countries are in South Asia? Why do we associate Judeo-Christianity and Buddhism with peace, progress and modernity, and Islam with violence and backwardness? Why has the evangelical movement become so powerful? Is the Judeo-Christian tradition a myth? Who are the Christians of the Middle East? In what context can we use the word orthodoxy? Where do these preconceptions and misconceptions come from? How intertwined are the concepts of religion, politics and violence? To address these questions, we will explore a variety of complex, intertwined, polysemic ideas and notions. Nationalism and secularism are two political projects that have led to violent conflicts, be they religious or political. They have reinforced religious differences and created minority categories. In fact, nationalist states that have promoted secular governance (Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Turkey) have also created the ideological and cultural conditions for the growth of religious and political movements that originally opposed the emergence of the nation-state. The modern secular state plays a major role in regulating religious affairs. Religion has in fact never disappeared from the public sphere. On the contrary, since the Iranian revolution and 9/11, the religious dimension of electoral politics and political violence has intensified. These two major contemporary events have shed light on a discourse of essentialisation of Islam produced in the West, which has become almost synonymous with violence and threat. What shortcuts reduced Islam to political violence and terrorism? Islam has been described as a discursive tradition (Asad, 1986) and political Islamism is a product of modernity. In response, Muslims, especially new generations, have come to define their identity in terms of various religious, ethnic and cultural criteria. Nevertheless, religious subjects are not only the product of the modern Western imagination (Brekke, 2015). In Muslim-majority countries, this led to political Islamism becoming a dominant force, either in the context of elections (Egypt, Turkey) - or in the spread of conservative Islamic values (Egypt, Bangladesh, Pakistan). The process of Islamisation of politics and the politicisation of Islam has had a negative impact on the lives of minorities. Citizens who speak out against religious bigotry can be threatened and even killed. The global political context and the local specificities intertwined triggered the rhetoric of the intolerable (Bangladesh, India, Pakistan). Since the 2000s, new waves of jihadist attacks, new generations of jihadist groups, locally or globally affiliated, have allowed a re-evaluation of conflict and violence through two lenses: the particularising view, which sees religiously motivated conflict and violence as sui generis, and the generalising view, which treats religion as just one of a number of functionally equivalent bases of identity and mobilisation (Brubaker, 2016). Everywhere, violence against the state gradually led to the production of authority within violence, and ultimately made the state more powerful. Drawing on sociology, political science, history, anthropology and media studies, the main aim of these courses is to recover the historicity of ideas and cultural specificities through the deconstruction of essentialist categories. Religion, politics and violence cannot be mere analytical categories, but it is also necessary to affirm their historicity and universality. They are dynamic concepts with multiple meanings and ways of influencing each other. They need to be articulated with key concepts such as the state, the nation-state, secularism, political Islamism, authority, legitimacy, monopoly of violence, symbolic violence. Throughout the semester, students will recognise that the social fabric - political or religious - is first and foremost a construction, without falling into the trap of unbounded constructivism.

Charza SHAHABUDDIN

Cours magistral seul

English

Spring 2024-2025

1°) A midterm exam (1/3 of the final mark) 2°) A group (3 or 4 persons) presentation of 30 minutes (1/3 of the final mark) Everyone has to present orally One subject, one (or several) problematique(s) 3°) A final exam (1/3 of the final mark)

At the end of the course, the student is expected to possess both generic skills and module specific skills. 1/ General skills To develop their capacity to critically assess and engage with academic sources. To avoid the pitfall of reifying concepts The capacity to test theories against the available evidence. The capacity to engage in debates by presenting well-reasoned and well-structured arguments supported by relevant evidence. The ability to identify and explain how trends in religion and society mutually affect each other. The capacity to critically assess sociological explanations of the origins and impact of political violence and religious violence. To argue against the use of religious explanation as a causal explanation 2/ Specific module skills To emphasize on the various meaning and dimensions of concepts such as religion, politics and violence To reaffirm both the historicity and universality of the concepts of religion, politics and violence To deconstruct the idea of identity as the continuity between a past and a present Master the few but primordial concepts covered during the sessions (monopoly of violence, nationhood, statehood, communalism, Islamism, jihadism, secularism, subaltern studies etc.) and to be able to step back and critize them ; This course will help the students better understand the present social, political and religious challenges in the contemporary political word with a focus on India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.