Unmasking religious extremism

Renowned sociologist Max Weber in 1920 spoke of what he referred to as the ‘Theodicy of Disprivilege,’ a term and idea that serves as a catch-all for the belief that eventual religious salvation may be granted as a reward for earthly poverty. This is something which ties into widely-held observations that religiosity is stronger among those in the working class. But despite this idea first being conceptualised in the early 1900s, it holds true in most parts of the world – be it in the American Midwest, the Middle East, India, or even here in Sri Lanka.

In America, increased economic disenfranchisement has seen a radical increase in strong catholic ideals, so much so that voting between Republicans – who hold extreme ideals, being against abortion and homosexuality for example – and Democrats – who are also religious, but hold more liberal views on the aforementioned social issues – is cast almost exclusively along religious and social lines. The irony in this is that Republican economic policies, for the most part, are worse for the working class than Democratic policies. Yet many Republican voters will vote against their own economic interests in favour of their religious ones, and this in turn will feed their increasing religiosity.

Sri Lanka, in this sense, is a prime example, where economic disenfranchisement has been weaponised to create a religious fervour, in a country that for much of its history had managed to avoid religious tensions by and large – albeit, prior to that it was the ethnic conflict that was in spotlight.

Indeed, this serves to highlight even further the constant aspect of governments using some sort of conflict to remain in and consolidate power, while pulling the shade over the collective eyes of the public when it comes to their economic mismanagement. So, if we take for example the many voices on social and traditional media warning of the rise in the religious extremism, while such views are understandable, they also tend to miss the larger, more overarching problem at hand.

When we label perpetrators of such heinous crimes as the lynching of Priyantha Kumara in Sialkot, or the rioters in Digana and Aluthgama, as extremists, we ‘other’ them and we distance ourselves – seemingly respectable, law-abiding members of society – from these radical elements on the fringes. Simply put, we make these people into monsters, so that we don’t have to look closer at ourselves and see how close we in fact are to becoming those monsters we so love to decry.

If we look at those who have so far been arrested for the murder of Kumara, the most striking aspect are the suspects’ ages; most look between the ages of 25 and 40, while there was one that looked barely out of his teens. So, the question arises, how does a group of men so young become capable of something so horrific? It’s certainly not something in the water, and it’s not something wrong with the religion as a whole – there are hundreds of millions of peace-loving Muslims the world over after all. But if extremism exists in all religions, and the religion itself is not at fault, then we must begin to ask what is fostering all this hatred?

The answer isn’t simple, but it also isn’t so simple as to say a particular religion is the root cause. This is the reality that we need to accept, and fast. Yes, radicalisation and fundamentalism in religion is a blight on society, but what is worse are the forces, namely government officials, that exacerbate it, and worse utilise it for their own benefit. We get rid of the latter, and the former won’t have room to rise.