‘Donald Trump and the Rise of Christian Nationalists’ was the title of an essay published in August this year on the academic website The Conversation. The term ‘Christian nationalism’ is not as frequently used in media (outside of the US) as are terms such as Islamic nationalism or Hindu nationalism.
Till the mid-20th century, political scientists viewed nationalism as a secular idea that undermined the moral and political authority of religious forces by replacing religious symbols, myths, mindsets and practices with secular ones. Nationalism was expected to function as a substitute for religion, fulfilling individual needs and consolidating group identities.
In part, nationalism was the product of brutal wars between Christian sects in Europe. This triggered the need to organise what were clubbed as ‘nations’ in a more rational manner, by furnishing a new understanding of relations between a nation and the state. Thus was born the idea of the nation-state.
But nation-states borrowed heavily from organised religions to add a sacred dimension to secular nationalism (a process called ‘sacralisation’, which frames nationalism as a ‘civic religion’). Consequently, by the mid-20th century, in many regions, religion increasingly became an important component of nationalism. The result was the eventual emergence of religious nationalism, which looks to overcome nationalism’s inherent secular disposition by placing politicised religion at its core.
Nation-states co-opted conventional religion so it could be regulated and controlled according to nationalist needs. But instead of safeguarding nationalism from those operating from outside its paradigm, has religious nationalism become a launching pad for theocrats?
From the 1970s onwards, religious nationalism in the shape of Islamic nationalism began to replace the more secular/sacralised manifestations of nationalism in many Muslim-majority countries. By the latter half of the 20th century and in the early 2000s, Hindu nationalism in India, Buddhist nationalism in Sri Lanka and Myanmar, Jewish nationalism in Israel, and Christian nationalism in Hungary, Poland, Russia and the US, began to attract mainstream approval and support.
Religious nationalism agrees that nations exist (in a nation-state) but posits that they can only be kept together through a ‘divine’ purpose, which should inform all of their economic, political and social actions. Therefore, the nation becomes one which was ‘chosen by God’, or is in the best position to serve Him. To religious nationalism, the latter can only be achieved by basing the nation-state’s policies and national purpose on the doctrines of the majority religion.
So why has religious nationalism witnessed a surge in the last 50 years or so? From the 18th century onwards, advancements in science, and political and economic modernity, succeeded in propelling societies forward, improving the quality of life. But these advancements also produced larger populations and complex political, social and economic issues. These created unprecedented tensions that seemed tough to resolve by nation-states, thus instilling a sense of insecurity and dread in people.
As a response, nation-states began to sacralise their nationalisms to offer some ‘spiritual’ solace, because conventional religion was viewed as existing outside the nationalist paradigm and thus a threat to the idea of the nation-state. Then, nation-states/nationalism decided to co-exist with conventional religion, before co-opting it so it could be regulated and controlled according to nationalist needs. Religious nationalism was the result.
Critics of religious nationalism warn that, instead of safeguarding nationalism from completely falling in the hands of those operating from outside the nationalist paradigm, it actually strengthens theocratic forces whose ultimate goal is to establish a totalitarian theocracy. In other words, religious nationalism is a launching pad for theocrats.
The nationalism that birthed Pakistan in 1947 and was then carried forward till the early 1970s is often called Muslim nationalism. It explained Muslims of South Asia as a separate ‘nation’. This Muslim nationalism looked to create a Muslim-majority nation-state but treated Islam as a pluralistic and civic-nationalist entity because the Muslim community in India, and then in Pakistan, consisted of various ethnic groups, sects and sub-sects.
However, as this project began to crumble in the face of complex economic challenges and the challenges posed by the country’s ethnic groups, the nation-state began to co-opt aspects of Political Islam. This was done to evolve Muslim nationalism towards becoming Islamic nationalism. It co-opted various dynamics of ‘Islamism’ as a way to save Pakistan’s nationalism from completely falling apart.
The Islamic nationalism adopted by Pakistan from the 1970s put the country’s existentialist purpose outside the context of South Asian Islam and tagged it with a global Islamic current initiated by Saudi Arabia from 1973 onwards. This went on for decades, as Pakistani nationalism looked towards the oil-rich Saudi Arabia, and the Saudi religious establishment, to construct its variant of Islamic nationalism.
Interestingly, though, as Saudi Arabia was posing as the leader of the ‘Muslim ummah’, more and more Pakistanis began to call themselves Muslims first and then Pakistanis. This ought to have been seen as a crisis of national identity and the weakening of Pakistani nationalism. But since Saudi Arabia was also dishing out ‘petro-dollars’ and providing millions of jobs to Pakistanis, the state wasn’t bothered. In fact, Pakistan’s Islamic nationalism became a ‘more loyal than the king’ variant of so-called ‘Saudi Islam.’
Recently, I heard two of my colleagues at work trying to figure out how to get a Saudi visa, which is becoming increasingly tough to acquire. Both of them are young men with long beards. One of them was telling the other to make sure to submit a photo of himself (for visa purposes) in which his beard was much shorter. Less than a decade ago, many Pakistanis were going out of their way to impress the Saudis by letting their beards grow, make their women wear hijabs and niqabs and openly exhibiting their religiosity. They were doing this not as Pakistanis, but as imagined members of the larger (Saudi-led) ‘ummah.’
One can observe the same sentiment in the way many among the Pakistani diaspora in the West began to dress and look from the 1980s onwards. Saudi Arabia had encouraged this in the ‘ummah’, by funding various ‘Islamic’ cultural movements and initiatives through organisations such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Jamaat-i-Islami etc. But here I was, now watching two young Pakistanis baffled by the way the once-guaranteed ‘more loyal than the king’ attitude had suddenly become a liability. That’s because the king had changed.
So, I wondered, what does Pakistan’s Islamic nationalism now mean? It was entirely dependent on how Saudi Arabia was peddling Islam in the Muslim world, before finally discarding it to adopt something entirely new.
Many other Muslim-majority countries adopted Islamic nationalism as well around the same time that Pakistan did. They too tagged it with Saudi Arabia. Maybe now they all have the space to realise that the Islamic nationalism that their nation-states adopted, is poles apart from the more organic Muslim nationalism that actually birthed their nation-states.
It’s a good time to revisit the issue to avoid any further identity crisis and confusion.
Published in Dawn, EOS, December 1st, 2024
