The Role of Religions - Rachel Becker

Rachel Becker

Moodle Post – The Role of Religions

April 2, 2012

            Religion is one of the most contentious issues that I can think of.  I think that this is because people need to believe that they are correct and that they are the only ones who can be correct.  Without this belief, the foundations of an individual’s life, what they look to for an overarching sense of a plan, can feel under attack.  As a result, other religions, which are seen as opposing religions, are placed under attack.  People set out to prove that they are dominant and have the right idea.  Of course, most of this is based in ignorance, which means that most people from a religious group have little to no understanding of any of the other religions in question.  This is particularly dangerous for religions like Islam that are associated with the negative actions of an extremist group above all else.  It means that the average person in this religion suffers because of gross generalizations and fear.

            In Jihad vs. McWorld, Benjamin R. Barber (2001) says that, “Caught between Babel and Disneyland, the planet is falling precipitously apart and coming together reluctantly at the very same moment” (p. 4).  In this age of globalization and technology, people can seem closer than ever.  You also hear a lot more from individuals.  At no other point in history did a stranger on the other side of the planet get to have and then vocalize an opinion about something that you have just said or written.  All of this contact produces conflict and it is constant, but Barber (2001) says that this conflict between Jihad and McDonald’s actually causes the opposing forces to strengthen.  I think that also as we view more and more information and images every day, we absorb less.  We try to get the big picture as quickly as possible and that leads to a limited perspective and perhaps generalizations.  I am certainly guilty of this, too.  The Invisible Children ad against Kony comes to mind.  That campaign was all over the internet within a matter of hours, and all people knew was that this person had to be bad.  While I’m sure this is true, it took a while before any further research was done that proved this to be a far more complicated issue.  The masses wanted a simple cause and they reacted.  This is the norm.

            I have an issue with the title of Charles Kurzman’s (2002) piece.  When he writes “Bin Laden and Other Thoroughly Modern Muslims,” it says that bin Laden is the example, rather than the exception, of current Muslims.  Using the name bin Laden creates a huge amount of buzz, but it also brings with it incredibly negative connotations which should never be applied to Muslims as a whole.  The article isn’t written badly or unfairly, but I resent the use of an attention grabbing name that is changes the meaning of the piece.  Under the title it reads, “Osama bin Laden may have operated from a cave in one of the least-developed countries in the world, but his radical Islamic movement in thoroughly modern” (Kurzman 2002; p. 13).  Kurzman is actually trying to capture the idea that there is variation in practicing Muslim people and Muslim countries.  However, I feel that he creates a sort of dichotomy that still places the labels of good and bad over certain groups.  It is always more complicated than that and readers are always going to interpret “modern” as current.

            Uma Narayan’s article on dowry murders has a lot to do with meaning being lost in translation.  She says, “The ‘information’ that does ‘filter through’ into the American context often seems to result merely in a vague awareness that ‘women are being burned to death every day in India,’ amalgamating sati to dowry murders in a construction of ‘Indian culture’ as one beset with a ‘cultural habit’ of burning its women!” (pp. 85-86).  This is obviously problematic and ties in to my prior point about absorbing the smallest amount of information and assuming that you have the whole picture.  Here, two concepts have been confused and then far exaggerated.  This mistaken belief now speaks for Indian culture in its entirety.  This is just another buzz issue, like Kony, that people care about for as long as it is in the media and the public consciousness. Narayan raises the excellent point that we need to think about how feminist issues are shaped by our boundaries, whether they are physical or mental.  This is really true for all issues, especially those of a sensitive subject.  How is the information that we are receiving being shaped for us?  Where can we go to get a more complete picture?

            Caitlin Killian’s (2003) article shows that there is little consensus over the veil as a symbol of religious devotion, let alone if it also a symbol of oppression or freedom of expression.  She says, “Meaning is not inherent in objects but, rather, is socially constructed around them (Best 1998).  Studying the veil as a contentious symbol thus informs us more about the actors involved in struggles over cultural boundaries and self-definition than about the article of clothing itself” (p. 568).  A piece of cloth covering ones hair or ones face says nothing in itself.  It is the government, or religion, or individuals who determine whether they are freeing the women behind the veil or if they are protecting themselves behind it.  Is it empowering or is it punitive?  I’m not sure that there is an answer here, but I’d be willing to bet that the French media is giving a distorted view to the public as they pass their legislation.  I would also argue that this is a buzz issue and that France has somehow determined Islam to be a threat that they need to act on in order to maintain their French identity.