From: "Nima Hazini" <lotusapt@wxc.com.au>
Subject: Re: Yes but, who are the Fundamentalists anyway?
Date: Tuesday, September 25, 2001 4:35 AM
Order of these two sections reversed from the
original message. What is Baha'i Fundamentalism QUOTED by Nima Hazini from
another author's work:
What is Baha'i Fundamentalism
The first major ideological characteristic of fundamentalism, is a
reaction
against the marginalization of religion in secular societies. Among
Baha'i
fundamentalists, this reaction takes the form of a belief in a future
theocracy, in which they expect Baha'i ecclesiastical institutions to take
over the civil state, and which differentiates them from Baha'i liberals
and
moderates. The belief appears to be rooted primarily in oral
traditions
attributed to Shoghi Effendi and letters written on his behalf by
secretaries, since although he does speak of a future Baha'i
commonwealth in his published works, its character remains vague.
Hand of
the Cause John Robarts reported his version of a long conversation with
Shoghi Effendi expatiating on this idea (Robarts 1993). Some Baha'is
believed that he held that a melding of religion and state would not occur
during the thousand-year dispensation of Baha'u'llah himself, but only
toward the end of the Baha'i "cycle," of some 500,000 years (Hofman
1953).
There are two problems for Baha'i fundamentalists. The first is that
Baha'u'llah's own writings, and those of `Abdul-Baha are frankly
anti-theocratic. The second is that in Baha'i law, oral traditions
are
supposed to be discounted in favor of written texts. Fundamentalists thus
tend to hew to generalities when explaining their belief, lacking
scriptural
support.
The second feature of fundamentalism is selectivity.
Fundamentalists
select and reshape aspects of the tradition, all the while asserting that
they have recaptured its pristine essence. They are also selective
in
their responses to modernity. They embrace some aspects of it (such
as
certain types of technology), while vehemently rejecting others.
Baha'i
fundamentalists engage in all three types of selectivity as well.
They
frequently make a claim to be engaging in traditional practices that are
in
fact innovations, and can do so with some success because the history and
texts of the Baha'i faith are relatively little studied and authorities
have often actively suppressed historical sources. We have already
mentioned the problem that theocratic beliefs are unscriptural. That is,
the
scriptural tradition in the Baha'i faith strove for a separation of
religion
and state as a way of making room for liberty of conscience for Baha'is in
Shi`ite Iran (McGlinn 1999, Cole 1998c:17-47). In his Treatise on
Leadership
of the early 1890s `Abdul-Baha said that religious institutions,
including
Baha'i ones, are never to intervene in affairs of state or political
matters
unbidden, and that whenever in history they have done so it has resulted
in a huge disaster. (`Abdul-Bahain Cole 1998a). He clearly
envisaged the
state and religious institutions as complementary, "like milk and
honey."
Baha'is, including Baha'i fundamentalists, have for the most part
embraced
modernity. They have a vision of building a peaceful global society
and for
the most part have a positive view of technological advances.
Still,
the selectivity of Baha'i fundamentalists toward modernity can be
witnessed
in the severe misgivings that some of them have expressed about the
Internet" or such issues as democracy and the separation of religion
and
politics.
Fundamentalist Baha'is put special emphasis on moral Manichaeanism.
They
see the world as comprised of a small cadre of those "firm in the
Covenant."
They....admit a larger number of Baha'is who are "infirm" but
perhaps not dangerously so. They worry about smaller numbers of
"liberal"
or "dissident" Baha'is who [they believe] attempt to
"undermine" the
Covenant.
Baha'i fundamentalism puts great emphasis on the absolutism and
inerrancy
of scripture. This belief is quite widespread but not
universal. It is
tested most fiercely with regard to issues such as evolution. `Abdul-Baha
maintained, in Sufi and Neoplatonic fashion, that human beings have always
been a distinct species and that human beings are not animals, insofar as
they are endowed with a soul. He also argued that the morphological
similarities between humans and apes might be merely functional (e.g,
sharks
and porpoises resemble one another but are not immediately related), and
maintained that "the missing link" would never be found.
These
assertions have foundered against the DNA revolution, which has found that
humans, chimpanzees and bonobos share 98 percent of the same genes and are
clearly closely related. During a discussion of his statements on
evolution, a typical poster to SRB wrote, "Dear all, On the
topic of
evolution: Clearly we should understand as clearly as possible what
'Abdul-Baha says on this subject. Because we believe His statements on
matters pertaining to the Revelation of Baha'u'llah and all of creation
are
infallible, we must be clear about what it is we believe, or are
accepting"
(SRB 6 July 1997).
Baha'i fundamentalists emphasize belief in an imminent catastrophe
they
refer to as "the Calamity" (Smith 1982). One
contributor to a Baha'i-only
list wrote, "I would like to open a discussion on a subject which
many of us
are somewhat unwilling to address - namely, the impending (year 2,000)
calamity which is supposed to create grave upheaval (literally) not only
here in California, but also on the East Coast, and other parts of the
world . . ." (Pers. Comm, March 14, 1994).
Fundamentalist Baha'is have an authoritarian view of how the Baha'i
"administrative order" should function. There is a great
emphasis on
obedience. The typical logic of Baha'i fundamentalists roots
obedience in
the legitimacy of authority, disallowing a rational examination of the
substance of a command or an inquiry into whether the body giving the
command has the "constitutional" prerogative to give it.
In this way,
arbitrary commands by Baha'i bodies are made to be an either-or
proposition.
If one accepts Baha'u'llah, one accepts his administrative order, and must
obey whatever it orders one to do, whether one agrees in
conscience or no. Rejection of the command, ipso facto, represents a
rejection of Baha'u'llah (Semple 1991). Thus, fundamentalist Baha'is
secretly consider liberals and some moderates "not Baha'is" at
all because
they do not demonstrate sufficient willingness to immerse their wills in
the
authority of the Baha'i administration.
Fundamentalist Baha'is believe that Baha'i institutions such as the
local
assembly or the NSA can be divinely guided, and that the Universal House
of
Justice is infallible. The technical terminology in Persian is not
unambiguous, and Baha'i texts make distinctions that this approach
disregards. Contemporary Baha'i fundamentalists avoid thinking
constitutionally about such issues, asserting the infallibility of the
House
of Justice in an undifferentiated manner. [One] American Baha'i and
mystery
writer...wrote, "The Guidance and infallibility of the Universal
House of
Justice are assured and promised. We are specifically directed,
as an act
of faith, to offer instant, exact, and complete obedience to Baha'u'llah's
House of Justice. We are warned of the dire
spiritual dangers inherent in ignoring this directive, and we are
admonished
to be vigilant, firm, and uncompromising in our loyalty, support,
obedience
and love for the this Divinely Ordained Institution."
(Talisman9 Archives, 23 May 2000).
Fundamentalist Baha'is view "the member's time, space and
activity" as "a
group resource, not an individual one" (Almond et al.
408). In some
communities enormous pressure is put on individuals by fundamentalists to
"teach the faith" or proselytize others. Some more liberal
(or just shy)
Baha'is report being extremely uncomfortable with this pressure and cite
it
as a reason they became inactive or withdrew from membership.
Constant
appeals are also made for Baha'is to donate money, to "give till it
hurts,"
and most of these donations appear to go to monumental building projects
at
the Baha'i world center in Haifa or to bureaucratic purposes at the
National
Baha'i Center in Wilmette. The Baha'i administration appears to do
almost
no charity work (measured as a percentage of their budget), especially for
non-Baha'is. Although Baha'is do not have a distinctive form of
dress, they
do have special ritual forms of prayer, and they fast in the Muslim way.
They are under surveillance for behavior that might contravene Baha'i law.
[Originally the first section.]
<long essay snipped>
--
It looks like I'll have to trot out a version of this post from time
to time
as a permanent feature of this NG.
--
The 9 typologies of Fundamentalism (according to the high 'doyens' of
Fundamentalism studies in the Academy, Marty/Appleby):
1) Fundamentalism mounts a protest against the marginalization of
religion
in
secularizing societies.
2) Fundamentalism *selectively* reshapes the religious tradition (i.e.
it
may represent
itself as a restatement of the essence of the religion, but in fact it
picks
and chooses from the tradition) and it accepts some aspects of modernity
while rejecting others.
3) Fundamentalism sees the moral world as divided sharply into good
and
evil.
4) Fundamentalism emphasizes the absolutism and inerrancy of its
scriptures
(and thus
rejects Western critical academic scholarship on that corpus).
5) Fundamentalism has a millennialist emphasis.
6) Fundamentalism has an elect, chosen membership.
7) Fundamentalism draws sharp boundaries between the saved and the
sinful.
8) Fundamentalism maintains an authoritarian, charismatic leadership
structure.
9) Fundamentalism has strict behavioral requirements for its
people.
In another important work on the fundamentalist phenomena in
Christianity, Judaism and Islam, i.e. _The Defenders of God: The
Fundamentalist Revolt Against the Modern Age_ (Columbia SC: 1995),
Professor Bruce B. Lawrence of Duke University (Religious Studies) points
out that,
Fundamentalism is the affirmation of religious authority as holistic
and
absolute, admitting of neither criticism nor reduction; it is expressed
through the collective demand that specific creedal and ethical dictates
derived from scripture be publicly recognized and legally enforced (p.
27).
Earlier he pointed out,
Fundamentalism is shaped both by its interaction with modernity and
its
reaction against modernism. It is a two-way, not a one-way, exchange. It
affects "secular humanists" as well as their fundamentalist
opponents. And
it is an exchange that has taken place, and continues to take place, on a
global scale, drawing into its orbit all religious traditions not just
Islam
[Judaism or Christianity] (p xiv).
Later on he notes,
...Fundamentalist challenges have arisen in several traditions. One
could
locate cadres that are Sikh or Buddhist, _Baha'i_ [he references Denis
Maceoin's "Baha'i Fundamentalism and the Western Academic Study of
the Babi
Movement"] or Hindu (p. 6).
On pp. 100-101 Lawrence delineates the common "traits" of
fundamentalists:
1. Fundamentalists are advocates of a pure minority viewpoint against
a
sullied majority or dominant group. They are the righteous remanant turned
vanguard, and even when the remanant/vanguard seizes political power and
seems to become a majority, as happened in Iran in 1979, they continue to
perceive and project themselves as a minority.
2. Fundamentalists are oppositional. They do not merely disagree with
their
enemies, they confront them. While the evil Other is an abstract sense of
anomie or uprootedness, it is located in particular groups who perpetuate
the prevailing "secular" ethos. Fundamentalists confront those
secular
people who exercise political or judicial power. Often they also confront
"wayward" religious professionals [or percieved
"wayward" scholars or
intellectuals].
3. Fundamentalists are secondary-level male elites. They claim to
derive
authority from a direct, unmediated appeal to scripture, yet because
interpretive principles are often vague, they must be carried by
charismatic
leaders who are invariably male. Notions of a just social order in Iran,
or
a halakhic polity in Israel, or a Christian civilization in America
require
continuous, repeated reinterpretation. In each instance what seems to an
outsider to be arbitrary retrieval of only some elements from a common
past
is to fundamentalists the necessary restoration of an eternally valid
divine
mandate. And it is a mandate mediated through exclusively male
interpretors.
4. Fundamentalists generate their own technical vocabulary. Reflecting
the
polysemy of language, they use special terms that bind insiders to each
other, just as they prempt interference from outsiders. Halakha for Jews,
shari'a for Muslims, [the "covenant" or
"infallibility" for Baha'is], and
"creation" for Christians represent...[four]...terms, each of
which would be
open to several interpretations but which fundamentalists invest with
particular meaning that exceptionalizes, even as it appears to validate,
their ideological stance.
5. Fundamentalism has historical antecedents, but no ideological
precursors.
As Marc Bloch warned, one should never confuse ancestry with explanation.
Though the antecedents of fundamentalism are varied and distant -
Maccabean
revolt for Jews, the Protestant Reformation for Christians, the Wahhabi
revolt for Sunnis Muslims, the martyrdom of Husayn for Shi'is -
fundamentalism as a religious ideology is very recent. It did not emerge
in
Protestant America until the end of the last century. It has only become
apparent in Judaism during the last fifty years, and since it represents a
delayed reaction to the psychological hegemony of European colonial rule,
it
could only occur in majoritarian Muslim countries after they had become
independent nation-states, that is, in most instances, after World War II.
So given all this, it is a rather big non sequitor (i.e. fallacy of
reasoning) to assert that fundamentalism is merely a Western boggeyman
ploy
or that Armstrong and others who are studying the phenomena are conflating
or misconstruing nationalism and religious identity assertion and lumping
them all under a tenuously common rubric. For the reasons stated above,
the
global phenomenon of fundamentalism is a very real one and one only need
look at the the IRI or the Taliban regime as two sore thump examples of
its
presence and existence.
The discourse of Liberalism (as opposed to Fundamentalism) makes the
following set of assumptions,
1. Discursive dynamicity (i.e. liberal discourse) is the product of a
continuous process of rational discourse.
2. Rational discourse is possible even among those who do not share
the same
culture, religion, belief system nor even the same ideological
consciousness.
3.Rational discourse can produce mutual understanding and
cultural/philosophical consensus, as well as sometimes agreement on
particulars.
4. Consensus permits of stable social arrangements, and is the
rational
basis of the choice of coherent strategies.
5. Rational strategic choice is the basis of improving the human
condition
possibly through collective action.
6. Liberalism as such can exist only where and when its social and
intellectual prerequisites exist.
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