Abstract
The question of self-determination bears importantly on all seven of the countries or regions1 that are the subject of a current study on religion and nationalism conducted by the United States Institute of Peace.2
The author is associated with the United States Institute of Peace. The opinions expressed in this essay, however, are the author’s own, and do not necessarily represent the views of the United States Institute of Peace.
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Notes
The study on Religion, Nationalism, and Intolerance is a five-year project undertaken by the working group on Religion, Ideology, and Peace, and directed by David Little. There are, so far, three resulting publications: Ukraine: The Legacy of Intolerance (Washington, DC: USIP Press, 1991); Sri Lanka: The Invention of Enmity (Washington, DC: USIP Press, 1994); Sino-Tibetan Coexistence: Creating Space for Tibetan Self-Direction (Washington, DC: USIP Conference Report, 1994). “Sudan: Plural Society in Distress” is now being prepared.
Whether or not religion is ever a “root cause” of nationalist conflict, it is clear, according to Gurr and associates, that it is an important “contributing factor”, precisely because custom, language, religion, and so on give to the majority a rationale or warrant “for denying access to people who are ‘different’”, and because cultural differences “make it difficult for minorities to operate effectively in institutions established by dominant groups”: Ted Robert Gurr et al., Minorities at Risk: A Global View of Ethnopolitical Conflicts (Washington, DC: USIP Press, 1993), at 317.
Autonomy, Sovereignty, and Self-Determination: The Accommodation of Conflicting Rights (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990), at 110.
See Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992).
Ernest Gellner defines nationalism similarly: “Nationalism is primarily a political principle, which holds that the political and the national unit should be congruent,” Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983), at 1. See Yael Tamir, Liberal Nationalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993) for an interesting exploration of ways of disjoining the nation and the state.
Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, supra, note 6, at 1.
According to Weber, there is a “need of social strata, privileged through existing political, social, and economic orders, to have their social and economic positions ‘legitimized’”. People “wish to see their positions transformed from purely factual power relations into a cosmos of acquired rights, and to know that [those rights] are thus sanctified”: “The Meaning of Discipline”, in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (eds) (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), at 262.
Max Weber, Economy and Society (New York: Bedminster Press, 1964), vols I, at 391 and II, at 925.
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verson, 1983), at 17–25.
Cited in Thomas A. Bailey, Woodrow Wilson and The Lost Peace (Chicago, IL: Quadrangle Books, 1963), at 18.
Judith Lichtenberg, “Nationalism, For and (Mainly) Against”, Address at a conference on the Ethics of Nationalism, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 22–24 April 1994, at 21 (unpublished).
Supra, note 4, at 474–5.
United Nations, Universal Declaration on Human Rights, UNGA Res. 217 A (III), UN Doc. A/810 (1948), at 71.
United Nations, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 6 ILM 368 (1967).
United Nations, Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination based on Religion or Belief, 21 ILM 205 (1982).
“Of or pertaining to this present world, or things not religious, spiritual, or holy” (Webster’s New International Dictionary, 1928).
Supra, note 16.
Turabi clearly stands in the tradition of Islamic revivalism: “An Islamic State cannot be isolated from society”, he says in “The Islamic State” in John L. Esposito (ed.), Voices of Resurgent Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), at 241, “because Islam is a comprehensive, integrated way of life. The division between private and public … has not been known in Islam.” Not only should politics not be differentiated from religion, but it was just this separation that caused the demise of Arab society. Consequently, the fundamental imperative of a Muslim ruler must be the priority of Islam, and a commitment to implementing Shari’a. Now for Turabi, the NEF, and the government, such an Islamic system provides the ideal solution to Sudan’s ethnically diverse society. Islam provides an inclusive framework of public order and morality for the sixteen or so million northern Sudanese, most of whom are Arabized and Muslim, as well as for the roughly eight million southerners, the majority of whom are black Africans and Christian or animist. At the same time, according to Turabi and his associates, the Islamic framework thoroughly accommodates and generously tolerates the various religious and ethnic minorities of Sudan. Turabi denies charges that the system is in any way discriminatory. Arguing before a House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee in May 1992, he declared: “[T]here has been absolutely no tension between … the revivalist movement … and other religious minorities.” “[Islamic revivalists] advocate a status for minorities which is very liberal, drawing on precedents from Islamic history … [M]inorities are entitled, not only to the freedom of religion and of religious practice, but also to cultural autonomy, even to a measure of legal autonomy … Islam, of course, also teaches not only tolerance of minorities, but positive relationships based on justice and benevolence.” House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing record, May 20, 1992, in Islamic Fundamentalism in Africa and Implicatons for U.S. Policy, (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1993), at 5. Moreover, in a small audience at his house in Khartoum in April 1993 at which the author was present, Turabi emphasized that the existing regime strongly favors a policy of “legal pluralism”, based on the “regional application” of Shari’a. Personal law (marriage, inheritance) would be differentially applied according to religious orientation, and nonMuslims would be exempt from most of the “Muslim provisions” of the penal sections of the Shari’a, such as the dress code for women, penalties for apostasy, consumption of alcohol, and the like.
US Department of State, Country Reports for 1993 (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1994), at 284.
Ibid., at 281.
Ibid., at 281.
Ibid., at 277.
Ibid., at 284.
Ibid., at 277–9.
Ibid., at 284. Incidentally, Coptic Christians are particularly subject to such discrimination, as the author learned in extensive interviews with them in Khartoum during a trip to Sudan in April 1993.
Francis Deng, “Tragedy in Sudan: A Personal Appeal to Compatriots and the Humanity”, Mediterranean Quarterly, (Winter 1994), at 47.
US State Department, Country Reports for 1993, at 279.
See Little, Sri Lanka: The Invention of Enmity, supra, note 2.
K. M. de Silva, Religion, Nationalism, and the State, USF Monographs in Religion and Public Policy, No. 1 (Tampa, FLA: University of South Florida, 1986), at 31.
Little and Hibbard, Sino-Tibetan Coexistence, supra, note 2, at 8.
Supra, note 16.
See Little, Ukraine: The Legacy of Intolerance, supra, note 2, at xvi–xxi.
Little and Hibbard, supra, note 2, at 11.
Ibid., at 11.
Ibid., at 9.
Ibid., at 13.
US Department of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1992, at 550.
See Little and Hibbard, supra, note 2, at 17–19.
See Ibid., at 8–13.
Lodi G. Gyari, “Religion and the Future of Tibet”, presented at the USIP conference, “Tibet: Religion, Conflict, and Cooperation,” September 28, 1993, at 3: “The most recent formal proclamation by His Holiness the Dalai Lama was the ‘Guidelines for Future Tibet’s Policy and the Basic Features of its Constitution’ in which His Holiness restates his decision not to play any role in the future government of Tibet For religion, this is a significant development as it clears the way for the head of state to be a secular leader. … Whereas the Guidelines say that the Tibetan polity should be founded on spiritual values’, nowhere does it refer to a ‘Buddhist nation’ … or say that government would have the duty to safeguard and develop religion.” “On the contrary, the Guidelines provide explanatory language on many areas, but not on religion, envisioning a fall separation of church and state. … The only mention of religion is found in the section, ‘Fundamental Rights’, which simply says all Tibetan citizens shall be equal before the law without discrimination on the grounds of religion and other classifications” (emphasis added).
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© 1996 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Little, D. (1996). Religion and Self-Determination. In: Clark, D., Williamson, R. (eds) Self-Determination. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24918-3_8
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