Talk:Fundamentalist

I would say both Al Qaeda and the Bush League are "fanatics devoted to violent attacks on their enemies with little or no program to govern after the attack." Especially Donald Rumsfeld. But Afghanistan proves that even when he isn't fully in charge, and has all of NATO and etc around to help, their handpicked guy still can't govern... he's effectively the Mayor of Kabul at this point...

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Well, this page may be pro-Eastern-religion propaganda now. But it's seemingly true that by not giving writing such special status, or having "thou shalt not, OR ELSE" type rules, those religions have escaped the worst abuses of Western styles of religion... in which one definitely must include Islam, since it's history just can't be in any sense disconnected from Judaism or Christianity.

The idea that Islam is more like Hinduism or Eastern mysticism is called Orientalism.


 * not by any of the references I checked for "orientalism"


 * Read Edward Said. The whole rationale for so-called Orientalism was to pretend that "the West" (meaning Judeo-Christian ideology) had nothing in common with, or owed nothing to, "the East", including both Islam (originally), and later Communism.  What was "Eastern" could be exotic and beautiful, but was inferior morally, and could be a source of fashion, but not of precedent or ideals.


 * In Said's view and that of Ziauddin Sardar (a very important scholar of democratic Islam), jamming Islam in with "the East" made it much easier to characterize as a threat, although in reality, Islamic scholars were the root of everything we call the Renaissance, and the so-called Dark Ages were a time of great advancement, scholarship and learning in the Islamic World. Scientific method and peer review for instance have their roots in methods originally developed to validate the hadith - the isnads which specify "X said that Y said that Z said that The Prophet said..." which were meticulously checked out by legions of scholars.  The citation index we use in science today, the peer review methods, etc., all come from early Muslim philosophy.

I rest my case


 * What "case"? If you want to ignore Edward Said and Ziauddin Sardar, fine, do that, but serious scholars pay pretty damn close attention to them both.


 * If your "case" is that somehow there actually *is* an "Orient" or "East" that includes Islam along with Hinduism and Buddhism, or that "Orientalism" is some neutral term only about art or something, that is a really weak case. It is and always was a form of propaganda designed to trivialize the so-called Near East, and Far East <-- just those terms themselves are pretty bluntly Eurocentric, "Near" and "Far" from whom?!?


 * But, if you are saying that Orientalism has been presented as a harmless cultural trend, with the trivializing of Islamic history and achievements not acknowledged by scholars other than those who really dug into the question, like Said and Sardar, that's a fair cop.

I removed
 * Interestingly, the most conservative sects of this kind, like Mennonites, are also the most pacifist and least judgemental.

because of uncertainty that the Mennonites are "sects of this kind". -- Maynard 04:41 21 Oct 2003 (EDT)


 * There are no Mennonites, and few Quakers, that do not say that what they express in their faith and actions are "fundamentals" of Christianity. Most are literal believers in the Bible as the truth in all details.  They are certainly "fundamentalist" in any neutral definition.


 * There are also progressive Islamic sects who see peaceful fundamentals in Islam. Most modern Sufis for instance.


 * The use of the word "fundamentalist" to mean "violent oppressors waving books to oppress" is itself a form of propaganda. A very common one.

I regard "fundamentalists" as extreme, not centrist.

A reference on the Mennonite faith: http://www.mcusa-archives.org/library/resolutions/1995/1995summary.html doesn't convey to me any sense of extremism; in fact I'm not sure what is in these documents which the Pope, or almost anybody else would seriously refute or disagree with. Others will read it differently.

A reference on the Quaker faith: http://quaker.org/friends.html also http://www.religioustolerance.org/quaker.htm Again, nothing here appears similar to the definitions of fundamentalist used in the SourceWatch article.

From what I see, any excuse to include either of these groups as "fundamentalist" could be used to include nearly all Christian faiths, including Catholicism and Mormon, in short, everybody.

Others will certainly disagree.

A fine Southern Baptist perspective on "fundamentalism" and its derivation is at http://www.crosscurrents.org/Huff.htm from whence the phrase "megachurch celebrities began a crusade to root out perceived heresy in all denominational agencies" stands out.

Uniquely violent aspects of Christian fundamentalism are worth exploring, but that part of this draft reads a bit like a "grass is greener" claim, insufficiently exploring totalistic and disassociative social trends that have arisen from faith or religious movements in the East.

The claim that Eastern doctrines can "in no way" be used to justify violence does not stand. Justice, during Confucius' time and in the era that followed, would likely be interpreted as the violent force of law.

"Someone said, 'What do you say concerning the principle that kindness should be met with kindness?'

"The master said, 'With what then will you recompense kindness? Recompense injury with justice. Recompense kindness with kindness.'" (1995, Bulfinch)

And though Confucius advocated genuine justice and government for the people, his works were recorded, repeated and potentially distorted as were the words of the Anno Domini Jewish king. We have no evidence that any of centuries' of rulers did not impose the cruel violence under Confusious' instruction to mete out justice for injury. Likewise, Daoism's focus on unneccessary assertiveness could be used by those in power to hold people in repression.

We can anticipate similar human tensions we see emerge around "fundamentalism" also could have emerged around faith systems about which we have less information. For Bhuddism, the icons of prayer beads, wheels and cloths are considered differently, but the intense veneration is similar to the fundamentalist near deification of a document. The People's Republic of China maintains that a Bhuddist theocracy oppressed the people of Tibet. Even the deposed CEO of that theocracy (who was at least once involved in drunken disorderly conduct and whose followers have at times acted out of hand in riotous protest) agrees the nation can never return to religious rule.

I took a stab at that section, trying to preserve as much of the conceptual framework as I can justify as balanced and based in fact, but the more I read, the less I could find a way to clean up unqualified claims that draw conclusions from thousands of years of history without surveying the work of other analysts. I hope this writer is not overly attached to every word contributed. Earlier parts of the article hold up, but this end tends to stray from a verifiable foundation.


 * Deleted the claim that "but in no case did they invoke a religious doctrine as a part of the justification for this kind of behavior" because it tends to imply, by silent comparison, that Christian fundamentalism (since the 1920s) has been officially invoked as a justification for "this kind of behavior" i.e. some sort of official violence. That in turn misconstrues the role of the fundamentalist movement in U.S. politics, policy and propaganda.


 * deleted "pope requiring preists to back out of political" because it did not inform the argument that two faiths were becoming more similar. And we have no evidence that catholic nuns are now more involved with social work in their communities. If we have more evidence of social work it might only represent our greater ability to gather evidence now because of the spread of technology The claim glosses over centuries of catholic history, hinting that they were not very helpful.

this is fundamentally flawed... equating "fundamentalism" with the christian variety is nonsense. There are Muslim, Jewish, Hindu... etc., fundamentalisms... It is not correct to make the equation with the christians.

The article accomodates multiple faiths. I'll enhance that feature. Thanks, --Maynard

--- there is very little in this entire article that is referenced. for the moment i'll relocate the entire unreferenced section that is currently the centre of a minor edit dispute.--Bob Burton 15:33, 13 Feb 2006 (EST)

as per above ---Bob Burton 15:35, 13 Feb 2006 (EST)
 * ==Sikh fundamentalism==

Sikh fundamentalism has attracted very little attention in the West. This could be because the few Westerners who have actually heard of the Sikh religion mistakenly consider it to be a part of Hinduism! Actually, the Sikh religion was founded by Guru Nanak in Punjab in 16th century, who rejecetd both the major religions i.e., Islam and Hinduism of the day. The state of Punjab was split between the Muslim majority areas which became a part of Pakistan and Hindu-Sikh majority areas which became part of India. Further seeds of conflict were sown in Indian part of Punjab due to the language and Punjab was separated again into Punjab, a Sikh majority state and Haryana, a Hindu majority state. Again the dividing of Punjab into 2 states led to territorial, water sharing disputes etc. In the late 1970s, the Indian government started interfering in Sikh religious affairs by involving Nirankaris, a sect which uses scriptures of sikh and hindu religions. This was resented by the Sikhs. On Baisakhi day, the day Sikhism was founded, in 1978 there was conflict between Nirankaris and Sikhs in Amritsar and 13 Sikhs were shot dead by the security forces provided to the Nirankari chief. (The question is why where the Nirankaris holding their meeting during the most sacred day in Sikh calender and in Amritsar ?)     This was the beginning of the conflict in Punjab. Some of the fundamentalist Hindus in Punjab e.g Lala Jagat Narain, who owned a prominent newspaper in Punjab, took the side of Nirankaris and posted blasphamous articles about the Sikh faith. Lala jagat Narain and the Nirankari chief were both gunned down by the Sikh fundamentalists. The conflict reached dangerous proportions when all Sikhs were harassed and not allowed to enter Delhi during 1982 Asian games. The conflict continued until 1984, when the Indian army attacked the Golden temple, on the pretext to remove fundamentalists from Golden Temple. The Golden temple attack stunned the followers of Sikh religion leading to the assassination of Indian prime minister Mrs.Indira Gandhi. The assasination of Indira Gandhi led to the massacre of Sikhs all over India. The final chapter in this conflict begin when an armed insurgency begin in Punjab. But by the mid-1990s, Sikh fundamentalism had considerably weakened. This was due to a variety of reasons. Sikh funadmentalist movement arose to punish the people responsible for destroying Golden temple and killing of Sikhs during 1984 riots. Once this was achieved the movement lost its momentum. With no obvious target, the various militant groups started targeting each other leading to their own demise. Most of the people supporting the fundamentalists also realised that the conflict was unwinable due to the overwhelming superiority of Indian armed forces. The inter-territorial, water sharing disputes etc. between Punjab and other states involved have not been solved and may lead to future conflicts. Finally, it is ironic that Hindus who came to the 9th Sikh guru asking to protect their faith (they were being persecuted by the Moghul rulers) and for whom the Guru sacrificed his life have forgot their own persecution. Furthermore even during 1947 riots the Hindus often took refuge in Sikh gurudwara (temples). Indeed, it has become a common propoganda by some Hindus that all minorities i.e, Muslims, Sikhs, christians etc. in India are fundamentalists. The fundamentalism of people among these religions in India should be seen vis-a-vis to repression of minorities and Hindu fundamentalism in India. (Have you seen a Sikh funadmentalist who is against Europe, US, church, Jews etc.)