James Wellman Associate Professor and Chair Comparative Religion Program Jackson School of International Studies University of Washington

Resources forthe Study  Title VI Funding: Center for Global Studies  Luce Foundation Grant:  Religion and International Affairs  Two year $300,000 grant to study Religion and Human Security  Series of Scholarly lectures  Two symposiums, refereed papers, including 15 national and internationally known scholars  Edited Volume on Religion and Human Security: Negotiating with Religious Non-state Actors

Thesis for talk: Fundamental importance of the relation of religion and human security Negotiating and understanding religion as it relates to states is a critical aspect of how the welfare of human groups is sustained

Question for the Study  Since 9/11, obvious questions:  Is religion the source of violence? Is religion the problem?  How is the state threatened by religious groups?  How does the state deal with religious non-state actors?  In what ways do religious non-state actors compromise, confront and compete withstates in providing human security?

Question for the Study  Religions relate to states in multiple ways:  Partnering with it, supporting the status quo  Maintaining a benign relationship withthe state— whether the state is religious or secular  Competing with the state,whetherin providing social service,or, more provocatively, bygaining political legitimacy

Question for the Study  Religion becomes competitor with the state, whether the state is religious or secular—  Often by providing social services where the state has failed—or secular social services fail:  Turkey  US Christian Right  Becoming a grassroots political force  Muslim Brotherhood  Hezbollah  US Christian Right

Begs the question: Does religion cause anything?  Religion is  A system of symbolic and social boundaries  related to a power or force experienced within and beyond the self and group  most often related to spirits or gods

Begs the question: Does religion cause anything?  In the modern world, religion is:  Organized group that is institutionally legitimized  Devoted to sharing and living out this worldview in the world  Mobilized as a separate center of power (social and political power)

Sources of religions power  Affective experience:  Religions make individuals and groups feel something powerful  mobilizes individuals and groups  Truth claims:  Religions make truth claims, while unverifiable,cannot be disconfirmed  Religious act because of these felt truths

Sources of religions power  Religions creates powerful elixir of experience/truth/promise/reward  Experience, source ofunending energy  Certain truth in uncertain world  Promise of purpose in the moment  Reward of blessings now and forever

Human Security v National Security  Human security we mean the provision of services that are essential to ensure that people enjoy a basic quality of life

Human Security v National Security  National Security:  Focuses on the question of how states ensure their long-term political independence in a world of nation-states  States defendagainst attacks by making war  States have sometimes, (maybe often) in attempt to defend sovereignty, ignore more basic issues of human security

First Axiom: Religion and its relation to the state  We argue:  religion sustains individual and group identities  acts to mobilize groups to nurture and defend the state and empire, as well as to resist political powers

Second Axiom: Ignoring religion is a mistake  Historically, religions  HAVE BECOME CENTERS OF INDEPENDENT POWER—DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THEIR POWER

Third Axiom: In modernity, religion increases in importance  The importance of religion in human security grows synergistically with crises in the world of nation states  States have collapsed or radically changed, and people have become subject to global forces over which they have no control

Final Axiom: In modernity, religion becomes sanctuary  Thus:  More and more people all over the world have returned to places and practices that are personal and familiar to them  imagined communities, whether real or not  evoke and provoke desire for return and motivate to recreate the past  religion as a sanctuary, nostalgia

Conclusion: Fundamental importance of the relation of religion and human security Negotiating and understanding religion as it relates to states is a critical aspect of how the welfare of human groups is sustained

Examples: United States  US:  Christian Right, felt failure of state to provide moral culture (human security) mobilized political action  Reactions:  Secularists: Threatens national security  Liberal Religionists: Keep religion out of politics  No religionists: Religion is poison

Examples: Middle East  Middle East:  Hamas, felt failure of state to provide moral culture (human security) mobilized political action  Reactions:  PLO (secularists): Threatens national security  Israel: support, and later attack  Conservatives (secularists)  Label group as terrorists

Juan Cole: Engaging the Muslim World  “By ‘engagement,’ I do not mean surrender or accommodation. I mean critique as well as dialogue, pressure as well as basic human respect, sticks such as sanctions as well as carrots such as better diplomatic and economic relations. I mean the demotion of military response from favored tool to last resort. I do not underestimate the challenge of radical Muslim fundamentalism but simply note that guerrilla wars have almost never been won by simple force of arms.” p. 5.