Why do territorial conflicts arise among religious groups?

• 1900s had a lot of global conflict

  • two world wars

  • Cold War

• local conflicts have increased in areas of cultural diversity

  • attempt by adherents of one religion to organize Earth’s surface may conflict with other religions and the nonreligious

fundamentalism: literal interpretation and strict adherence to basic principles of a religion (or a religious branch, denomination, or sect)

• most important way in which a group can maintain a distinctive cultural identity

• however, people conviced their religious view is the correct one may intrude upon territory controlled by other religious groups

Religion vs. Government Policies

• religious groups may oppose government policies seen as promoting social change and conflicting with traditional religious views

• role of religion has waned in some societies due to political and economic change

Religion vs. Social Change

• in LDCs, participation in global economy and culture exposes them to MDC values and beliefs

• MDCs may not view economic development as incompatible with religious values, but adherents in LDCs of religions other than Christianity do

Taliban vs. Western Values

• Afghans welcomed Taliban, preferring them to the corrupt and brutal warlords who had been running the country prior

  • US + Western officials welcomed them as strong defenders against a possible new invasion by Russia

• Taliban had run Islamic Knowledge Movement services since the 600s

• Taliban imposed very strict laws as Taliban interpreted Islamic values

  • “western, non-Islamic” leisure activities banned

    • playing music

    • flying kites

    • watching TV

    • surfing the Internet

  • soccer stadiums → settings for executions and floggings

  • men beaten for shaving beards

  • women stoned for committing adultery

  • homosexuals buried alive

  • prostitutes hanged in front of audiences

  • thieves’ hands were cut off

  • women wearing nail polish had their fingers cut off

• ancient Buddhist statues destroyed

• Islamic scholars criticize Taliban as poorly educated in Islamic law and history and for misreading the Quran

• US overthrew the Taliban and replaced it with a democractically elected government

• Taliban regrouped and resumed its fight for control of Afghanistan and Pakistan

Hinduism vs. Social Equality

caste: the class or distinct hereditary order into which a Hindu is assigned, according to religious law

• originated when Aryans invaded India

• divided into 4 castes

  • Brahmans

    • priests

    • top administrators

  • Kshatriyas

    • warriors

  • Vaisyas

    • merchants

  • Shudras

    • agricultural workers

    • artisans

  • below the 4 castes are the Dalits

    • outcasts

    • untouchables

    • did work considered too dirty for other castes

• untouchables were descended from the indigenous people who lived in india prior to the Aryan conquest

• social relations among castes were limited, and rights of non-Brahmans were restricted

• British administrators + Christian missionaries point out shortcomings of the system

  • ex. neglect of untouchables’ health and economic problems

• type of Hinduism practiced depends on the caste

  • high caste

    • based on knowledge of relatively obscure historial texts

  • low caste

    • illiterate

    • in a rural viallge

    • perform rituals without a highly developed set of written explanations for them

• the caste system has been relaxed

• however, discrimination still occurs

Religion vs. Communism

Christianity + Islam vs. The Former Soviet Union

• Czar Peter the Great made the Russian Orthodox Church part of the Russian government

• patriarch of the Church replaced by a 12-member committee (Holy Synod), nominated by the czar

• after the Bolshevik Revolution, the Soviet Union pursued antireligious programs

  • Karl Marx had called the religion “the opium of the people”, a view shared by V. I. Lenin and early Communist leaders

    • Marxism became the official doctrine of the USSR

• Soviet Union eliminated official church-state connection

  • church buildings and property were nationalized and could be used only with local government permission

• Orthodox retained adherents with the elderly, but the lack of contact with the younger generations caused religion to dwindle in daily life

• end of Communist rule allowed a religious revival, especially where Roman Catholicism is the most prevalent branch of Christianity

  • Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia

• in the “stan”’s in Central Asia, most people are Muslims

  • struggled to determine the extent to which laws should be rewritten to conform to Islamic custom

Buddhism vs. Southeast Asian Countries

• Buddhists hurt by the Vietnam War

  • French + Americans vs. Communist groups

• air raids and vandalism damaged Buddhist shrines

• Buddhist immolated (burned) themselves to protest policies of South Vietnamese government

• Communist governments discouraged religious activites and permitted monuments to decay

Religion vs. Religion

Religious Wars in Ireland

• Republic of Ireland

  • 87% Roman Catholic

• northern UK part

  • 46% Protestant

  • 40% Roman Catholic

• island had been an English colony

• poor economic conditions + famines → mass emigration → agitation for independence from the British

• Ireland became a self-governing dominion within the UK, and later completely independent

  • 6 northern counties voted to remain in the UK

    • Protestants preferred to be with the Protestant majority UK than join the Roman Catholic majority in Ireland

• Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland have been victimized by discriminatory practices

  • demonstrations protested discrimination

  • 3000 people have been killed

• a few Roman Catholics joined the Irish Republican Army (IRA)

  • militant organization dedicated to achieving Irish national unity by whatever means available

• Protestans created the Ulster Defense Force (UDF) to fight the IRA

• majority of Roman Catholics and Protestants are willing to live peacefully, but extremists disrupt daily life and do well in elections

Religious Wars in the Middle East

• conflict in the Middle East has occured because Jews, Christians, and Muslims have fought to control the same land

• some hostility stems from their similar herritage

• trace origins to Abraham, but diverged into different stories

• Judaism

  • makes a claim to the Promised Land

    • major events in the development of Judaism took place there

  • after Romans gained control of the area, they called it Palestine, and dispersed the Jews from there

• Islam

  • became the most widely practiced religion in Palestine after the Muslim army conquered it

  • regarded Jerusalem as their third holiest city

    • Muhammad is thought to have ascended to heaven

• Christianity

  • considers Palestine the Holy Land and Jerusalem the Holy City

    • major events in Jesus’s life occured there

  • Palestine accepted Christianity after it was adopted by the Roman Empire, prior to the Muslim conquest

Crusades

• Arabs/Muslims captured most of the Middle East

  • diffused the Arabic language and converted people from Christianity to Islam

• invaded Europe

  • initially halted by the Franks

  • continued later and controlled even more area

  • Franks ensured Christanity would be the dominant religion

• Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople and advanced to Europe

• European Christians launched a series of military compaigns (Crusades) to recapture the Holy Land from Muslim conquerors

  • captured Jerusalem

  • lost Jerusalem

  • regained Jerusalem

  • lost Jerusalem

Partition of Palestine

• Ottomans controlled Palestine, but lost it to the UK after WWI

• British allowed some Jews back to Palestine, but immigration was restricted in reponse to intense pressure by Arabs

• violence between Jewish and Muslim escalated after WWII

• British announced their intention to withdraw from Palestine

• UN voted to parition Palestine into two independent states

  • one Jewish

  • one Muslim

• Jerusalem was to be an international city

Wars between Israel and Neighbors

• Jews declared an independent state of Israel

• Israel fought wars with its neighbors

  • Independence War

    • Arab Muslims declared war after Israel declared independence

    • survived the attack

    • Israel’s boundaries extended

      • gained western suburbs of Jerusalem

  • Suez War

    • Egypt seized the Suez Canal

    • Egypt blockaded international waterways near its shores that Israeli ships were using

    • Israel, France, and UK attacked Egypt and reopened the waterways, though it retained control of the Suez Canal

  • Six-Day War

    • Israel’s neighbors blocked Israeli ships from using international waterways

    • Israel launched a surprise attack, destroying the coalition’s air forces

    • gained the Old City of Jerusalem and the West Bank, the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula

  • Yom Kippur War

    • suprise attack on Israel by its neighbors occured on the holiest day of the year for Jews

    • war ended without changes in boundaries

  • Peace Treaty

    • Egypt’s president and Israel’s prime minister signed a peace treaty

    • Egypt’s president was assassinated but his successor finished the treaty

Conflicting Perspectives of the Holy Land

• Palestinians emerged as Israel’s principal opponent

  • see themselves as the legitimate rulers of Israel

Israeli Perspectives

• Israel is a very small country, and its people live extremely close to international borders, making them vulnerable to attack

• Palestine is divided into three narrow, roughly parallel physical regions

• Jordan and Syria used hills as staging areas to attack Israeli settlements

• Israel captured those highlands to stop attacks

• Israeli Jews were divided between those who wished to retain occupied territories and those who wished to make compromises with the Palestinians

• in recent years, the majority supported the construction of a barrier to deter Palestinian attacks

Palestinian Perspectives

• five groups of people consider themselves Palestinians

• fight against Israel was coordinated by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), under the leadership of Yassir Arafat

• Israel permitted organization of a limited form of government, called the Palestinian Authority, but they are not satisfied

• divided between the Fatah and Hamas parties

• people with the Fatah Party recognize the state of Israel in exchange for return of all territory taken by Israel

• people with the Hamas Party, do not recognize the right of Israel to exist and want to keep fighting

• Palestinians see immigration of Jewish settlers to the West Bank as a hostile act

Jerusalem: Contested Geography

• Jews, Muslims, and Christians will not be satisfied with control over Jerusalem until only one religion holds control

• the most sacred space for Muslims is literally built upon the most sacred space for Jews

Judaism’s Jerusalem

• Jerusalem is the Temple, their center of worship in ancient times

• First Temple was destroyed by Babylonians

• after the Persian Empire, Jews built a Second Temple

• Romans destroyed the Second Temple, but the Western Wall of the Temple survives

• Western Wall is called the Wailing Wall because Jews were allowed to visit it only once a year to lament the destruction

• after Israel captured Jerusalem, it removed barriers that prevented Jews from visiting it

Islam’s Jerusalem

• most important Muslim structure in Jerusalem is the Dome of the Rock

  • believe the large rock beneath the dome is the place from which Muhammad ascended to heaven, as well as the altar on which Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son

• south of the Dome of the Rock is the al-Aqsa Mosque, built on the ruins of the Jewish Second Temple

• Israel allows Muslims unlimited access to its holy structures and some control over them

• since the spaces are on top of each other, it’s impossible to divide it by a line on a map