Religion and Collective Suicide
There seems to be a strange relationship between religion and the phenomenon of collective suicide. A singular illustration of this phenomenon is the growing trend to identify and to classify the major political forces in Mid Eastern conflicts in religious terms: "Shiites" and "Sunnites" and the growing acceptance of this extreme oversimplification by the media worldwide. The tragic civil war in Iraq, one of the countries most open to modern technology and science in the Sixties and Seventies of the 20th centuries in the area, ruined by a ruthless dictator and two wars (both with a geostrategical background) is now classified exclusively in religious terms, despite the fact that multiple political, sociological and demographical factors are involved that cannot be exlained by the religious background alone.
The class struggle of the 19th century, replaced by the "race struggle" in Nazi Germany has now turned into a "faith struggle" with the same release of (self-)destructive energy. Marxists would say that political use of racist and religious justifications for discrimination are "masquerades" of the class struggle, but this again is an over-simplification. Whatever the reasons for the changing of "masks"
from generation to generation, the most important feature of these phenomena is the fact that they are used to implant unrestrained hatred into the psyche of those who believe towards non-believers (or towards those who believe in a slightly different way)...
3 comments:
A sharp observation you made there.
In his latest book Zorn und Zeit (I haven’t read it so far) the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk calls these “masks” Zornbanken (banks of anger). They aim to canalize, institutionalise and manage existing fury. Typical banks of anger are the church, political parties etc.
Where does this fury come from?
An interesting theory of the origin of the mentioned fury is delivered by Gunnar Heinsohn, a German sociologist and economist. His main statement is that genocides, civil wars etc. are mainly caused by a youth bulge (a demographical overflow of young people). The book is called “Söhne und Weltmacht” and can be found here: http://www.pdf4ebook-verlag.de/ShneundWeltmacht.html#Zweig4
I think both books are worth reading.
Greetings from Basel and beware of the angry young men ;)
What you identify as a "growing trend" is in fact a method in use for nearly two hundred years. This method of classification/generalisation so frequently used by Orientalists is simply a means to disect, deconstruct and eventually instigate separation in what is a homogenous region, those suggesting otherwise have not read enough Arab history of the likes of Phillip Hitti, Georgie Zeedan, Amin Malouf, Ahmad Faris Al Shedyaq, unfortuantely not all of these works have been translated although a good summary can be found in Hourani's Arab Thought in the Liberal Age.
This specific form of classification you speak of was rampant in early 20th century with the occupation by the British of Iraq and then the subsequent division of the country in areas controlled by Sunni's, Shiites and Kurds.
This is an intended oversimplification by the media, conceived in the hopes of drawing a distorted picture of the Iraqi people.
I should like to thank both commentators for their recommended reading.
To Epicure: I am familiar with Heinsohn's theory of the demographic bulge and it's application to the situation in Europe during the World War I(e.g. battle on the Somme). The cruel paradox that emerges from the demographic bulge theory and the role of totalitarian organizations is that we might be tempted to be grateful to religions that are able to canalize, organize and manage the liquidation of hundreds of thousands or even millions of young men for the simple fact that they are capable of delivering low cost "analgesics" to the victims.
To Anonymous: Once again we are reminded of the effects of the "redeployment" of populations according to superficial classifications by the colonial powers...
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