Geopolitics of Religion and Its Role in Youth Agency

Abstract

As part of reconstructing political socialization methods, it is important to analyze the effect of religion. Traditionally, children and youth were thought to gain the majority of their political viewpoints through their parents or caregivers whose perspectives could be influenced by religious beliefs and affiliations. Along the same lines, religious socialization of children and youth has largely focused on the same top-down methodology; that is, a child or youth becomes affiliated with the same religion as that of his or her parents/caregivers. It has been argued that an individual’s religious beliefs will affect his or her political affiliation and ideology; hence, if a youth’s political socialization is dependent on his or her parent/caregiver, then he or she would also share the same religious belief system. While this is sometimes the case, religion plays a much more pervasive role within the system of political socialization for youth. Moving beyond only a parent/caregiver’s religious beliefs, youth are influenced by the way they perceive religion in the community at large. In addition, the politicization of religion cannot be ignored and its relation to the practice of religion is as important to youth as political socialization. As part of reconstructing the traditional methodology of political socialization, one of the most important processes is to unpack the politicization of religion and religious affiliation since global politics do not distinguish between religion and political affiliation of youth. In the case of Palestine, youth take religious courses at school and many of the political parties endorse religious idioms, while the local/global political reality is affected by the politics of religion. Hence, youth demonstrated their political agency by integrating the politicization of religion. Due to this interaction, religion and its politicization are significant factors in the political socialization of Palestinian youth, as a 14-year-old male journal participant from a village simply stated, “I became one of Hamas supporters because it is [an] Islamic party.”

The [political] parties have an effect on people, and because each person belongs to a different party, students too are affected. Otherwise some people don’t belong to any party. In my opinion, the Palestinians should go back and stick to the Islamic faith.

—14-year-old male from a village

The Lebanese children were killed because they stick to Islam, and we will fight so we do not disappoint them. There will be no Jews in our land. We will fight to the end.

—12-year-old female from a city