Nationalism and Religion 22 March 1996/2 Dhu al Qa‘dah 1416 London School of Economics, University of London, London, UK

Following the spectacular disintegration of the Soviet Union, popular
and academic interest in nationalism and religion gathered momentum. In
addition to recent ethnic clashes and religious conflicts in many parts of the
world, particularly the Balkans, Central Asia, the Middle East, and many
African states, questions have been raised about the relation between
nationalism and religion. What, if any, is the relationship between nationalism
and religion? To what extent can religion influence the emergence
and maintenance of nationalism? Can religious beliefs and sentiments legitimize
a nationalist ideology? What is meant by “religious nationalism,” and
how is it related to nation-states, resistance, and violence? These questions
were addressed during a one-day conference held at the London School of
Economics, University of London on 22 March 1996. The well-attended
conference was organized by the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and
Nationalism, which was established in 1990 and has published the journal
Nations and Nationalism since March 1995.
The first paper at the Nationalism and Religion conference was presented
by Bruce Kapferer (University College of London, London, UK).
In his paper “Religious and Historical Metaphors in the Context of
Nationalist Violence,” he addressed political action, the force of ideologies,
and the relevance of mythological schemes to religious and ritual practice
by means of a case study of Sinhalese Buddhists in Sri Lanka and the
events of 1989-90. In his own words, his focus was “the dynamics of
remythologization, or the process . . . whereby current political and economic
forces are totalized within mythological schemes constructed in historical
periods relatively independent of the circumstances of contemporary
nationalism” and “the force of such ideological remythologizations, that is,
how such remythologizations can became a passionate dimension of political
activity and give it direction.”
According to Kapferer, the relation of mythologization to routine religious
beliefs and ritual practice is significant. In his paper, he argued that
“nationalism is the creation of modernism and it is of a continuous dynamic
nature whose power is embedded in and sanctified by the culture that has
originated in the rituals of religion which provide a cosmology for nationalism.
Cosmology of religion as diverse as nationalism itself that is far from
universal claims but exists in diversity.” Kapferer’s theorization is based on
his research in Sri Lanka where, he thinks, continuing conflict is related to
nationalism based on cosmologies. The case of Sri Lanka provides an
Seminars, Conferences, Addresses 425
excellent example of how the construction of state ideology is influenced
by religious forces, in this case Buddhism. Kapferer asserted that religion
had a deep territorialization aspect and that nationalism, in this sense, might
have functioned as reterritorialization of a particular land and postcolonial
state. One can discern from his statements that, in the construction of state
ideology in Sri Lanka, myths written by monks and religious rituals were
used to create a nationalist movement that eventually developed into a violent
and destructive force in the context of Sri Lanka. Kapferer believes that
the hierarchical order of the Sri Lankan state is embedded in the cosmology
of ancient religious chronicles.
Christopher Cviic (The Royal Institute of International Affairs, London,
UK) analyzed another phenomenon taking place in Western
Europe. His paper, “Chosen Peoples and Sacred Territories: The
Balkans,” discussed the relationship between religion, nation, and state
in the Balkans throughout history and analyzed how these forces have
played themselves out in current events. According to Cviic, historical
developments in the Balkans can provide important clues to understanding
the ongoing Balkan crisis, in which the Orthodox Church has
assumed the status of a nationalist institution representing the Serbian
nation. The roots of these developments and the creation of a mythical
“chosen” Serbian nation legitimized by religion can be traced to the
defeat and fall of medieval Serbia at Kosova by the Ottomans. This
defeat meant that they lost the land.
However, under the Ottoman millet system, non-Muslim communities
were allowed to organize their religious life and legal and educational
institutions. This allowed the Serbs to preserve and develop their ethnic
and religious identities under the leadership of the Orthodox Church.
Thus, religion and identity became inextricably linked, and the Orthodox
Church assumed an extremely important role in the public life of individual
Balkan nations. Cviic pointed out that “in the case of the Serbs, their
Orthodox Church played an important role in the formation of the modem
Serbian nation-state by nurturing the myth of Kosova, named after the
Kosova Polje defeat by the Turks. Essential to that myth was the view that
by choosing to fight at Kosova Polje, the Serbs had opted for the Kingdom
of Heaven. Later on the myth grew into a broader one, representing the
Serbs as the martyr/victim people with a sacred mission of wresting their
Holy Territory of Kosova from the infidel Muslims to whom it had fallen.
A later variant of that myth defined Serbia in terms of wherever Serbian
graves were to be found.” ...