How now religion is playing a role in the political arena, and especially in the international arena? In anyway, the role played in the national arena has international consequences as we are now in a global and interdependent world. The issue seems to be easy as we have so many examples of this political function of religion, and however it is very difficult to observe because there are many many illusions when we are discovering and watching all these political expressions. I think we have to discriminate three levels of relevance. The first would be power: how religions are defining themselves when facing power? The second would be mobilization: what’s the role of religion in political mobilization? And the third is conflict: what’s the role of religion inside the national conflicts, but overall, the role of religion in international conflicts? If we take into account power as the first level of relevance, we have to observe something very very important, that’s to say most of the religions were built in protesting against power, almost all religions were organized, were structured by opposing to power, and there are different kinds of expressions of this very conflictual relation. The first is really questioning political power and directly protesting against it, and the best example is to be find in the history of Islam, when prophet Mohamed decided to leave the city of Mecca for creating another, and creating Islam at this time was a kind of political protest, that's to say Islam has been generated through political protest against the organization of the city of Mecca. The second configuration is to be found in other religions which didn’t really question the political power but ignored it and tried to organize themselves in a kind of soft opposition against the power, and for this reason, this new religion was persecuted by the old power, which feel to be threatened by the new religion. It was quite clear for the Roman Empire when Christianity grew up, but it is also quite clear about Buddhism and the role of protest played by Buddhism against the Hindu system, that’s to say the Hindu society, made of inequalities, and the Hindu kingdom. The third aspect of this opposition is to be found in the role of religion which tries to balance power, to contain power. A good example is to be found with Christianity which was conceived through this famous theory of the two swords, of two fields: temporal and spiritual, in which the spiritual power was supposed to contain and to balance the temporal power of the king. The famous western theory of balance of power finds probably its origin in this vision of duality, which was created and promoted by Christianity. Buddhism is also another example of balancing power. The role of Buddhist monachism in the Tang Empire is a good instance of this monachism which was supposed to contain the imperial power, that’s why sometimes Chinese imperial power, Tang power tries to contain and sometimes even persecute the monachismin China. Another kind of opposition is to be found in the depreciation of power, Hinduism is conceived as depreciating the political power. The Brahmans are considered as superiors to the kings and the political actors, that’s to say it’s a manner of saying that contemplation is more legitimate than power and is supposed also to contain the pretentions of power. But in the meantime, religion has been used also for strengthening power, it’s a kind of inversion of its original function. If we take into account for example the cesaropapism and the theory of the absolutist state in Western Europe, there were conceived as trying to legitimize the political power, the king power by using religious formula, and by organizing the alliance between church and state. The same can be found in some Buddhist countries like Thailand in which the power of the king is also fueled by Buddhism and in which the king is considered to have a part of religious legitimacy. Sometimes, it’s another figure: religion appears to be a substitute to political power, and this is quite clear with Islam. When the city of Medina was created by the prophet, this city was considered as a substitute to this negative city of Mecca, and this inspired, influenced, strongly influenced, the new Muslim Empire, the Omayyad Empire, and then the Abassy Empire creating a new kind of merging between political power and religious power. And the same can be found now for instance in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, when the alliance between the family of the king and the Al Sheikh family which was considered as a religious family, providing a religious legitimacy to the king and to the kingdom. And sometimes, religion is a basis of delegitimizing power. The Islam protest is considered as the way of delegitimizing the political power. It was the case for instance when the Muslim brothers protested against the power of the royal family, and after when Sayyid Qutb contested the power of Gamal Abdel Nasser which was fueled by secularism. Now if we move to the second concept, which is the concept of mobilization, religion is playing a very important role in organizing in different ways the political mobilization. I would consider three figures. The first one is this figure, which is very strongly present in Islam, of a mobilization which is considered as more legitimate than power. In this vision, mobilization is defined as not only a right but also as a religious duty. If we take into account the role played by Sayyid Qutb, who was a leader of the Muslim brothers during Gamal Abdel Nasser period, the main argument of Sayyid Qutb is to say that when a power is not properly rule when a power doesn’t work according to the Sharia, the Islam community has not only the right but has a duty to find against it. And that’s why, in his mind, Jihad is not only against those who are belonging to other religions, but Jihad is also to be used inside the Muslim community when the prince, when the ruler is not ruling according to the Islamic law. This is very important because this is providing a very strong religious legitimacy to protest and to mobilization, and that’s why, the Islamist tradition, Islamist means this strong connection between political protest and Islam, is playing such an important role in Muslim countries. These protests can be oriented against the power, when the power is considered as not respecting the divine law, religious law, but is also used against Western countries, that’s why Islamism was one of the first mobilizations against Western countries. Don’t forget that Muslim brothers were created at the end of the 20s, during the 20th century, and, at this time, Hassan el-Banna was living in Ismaïlia that's to say a city, which was as you know occupied by many western people coming from Europe, and especially from UK and France, for the Suez Canal, Hassan el-Banna used this Islamist formula for contesting and protesting against the Western presence in Egypt. But something very important: Islamism is not necessary leading to a strong and violent protest. There is another figure inside Islamism, inside the Islamist tradition by which politics was considered as something not really pure which is probably spoiling and which must be contained. This quietist tradition is now to be found in some Muslim brothers but also in some traditions of Salafism in which politics is contested but not really fought against, in which people are appealed to leave the city and not being involved inside political activities. And last point, mobilization is also a way for expressing demands and religion is playing a very important role by doing that. For instance, when opposition is not very structured, or is not able to bring and to transmit social demands, in authoritarian systems in which religion is a kind of opposition, which does not legally exist, but we can find that also in some democracies, in which rightist parties are failing or are not properly operating or are delegitimized. It’s the case for instance in Europe after WWII when rightist parties were weakened by WWII and Christian democracy acted as a substitute to these parties as a way of bringing and aggregating social demands. Now last question: conflicts. What about conflicts? You know, we used to say that international conflicts are made of religious clashes, this is the famous argument delivered by Samuel Huntington in Clash of Civilizations. But it’s not really true if we observe the present international conflicts. It’s very hard to find a conflict, which is directly coming from religious clashes, the reality is that religion is, as I mentioned, a very good emblem which is used by political actors, political entrepreneurs and by states in their international activities. But behind these emblems, we can find many many political factors, social factors, which are much more important than religious factors. For instance, we can find this kind of apparent religious conflict in multi-confessional societies, but in multi-confessional societies, the problem is not clash of religions, it is the clash of status between minority and majority, the lack of integration of minorities. It is not a theological problem, it is not a religious problem, it’s a problem of political participation and of political status. This is the case for instance during the Indian partition as I mentioned in my previous lecture, but it is also the case in many African countries in which the status of the religious minority is not clear and is not politically and institutionally organized. It is also the case in civil wars. Civil wars are coming from the collapse of the social contract, but the collapse of the social contract doesn’t imply that there is a necessary clash between religions. When Iraq for instance collapsed as a nation, as a nation state it appeared a strong oppositions between Shi'ism, Sunnism and Kurd people. Kurd people, it’s no matter with religion, it is a question of ethnicity, but this clash was not a religious clash, it was really a political clash. Last example is to be found now in international conflicts, international conflicts sometimes appear as religious ones but are not religious conflicts. If we take into account Palestine versus Israel, it is not a clash of religions, it’s clearly, obviously a clash of nationalisms. And if we take into account for instance the Iran-Iraq conflict, it was not a religious conflict between Shiits and Sunnis. If it was the case, the Iranian Sunnis would have support the Iraqi regime, and the Iraqi Shiites would have support the Iranian regime. It was not the case. That’s why, there is kind of after-thought about the role played by religions in international conflicts when the social and political factors must be considered.
