Karen Armstrong is a giant in the history of religion. It is hard to believe that she served for 6 years as a Catholic nun. Her many books have spanned all of the major world religions. Her latest work can help us to understand the recent rise of religiously motivated violence. This is why I read Fields of Blood; Religion and the History of Violence. I am trying to better comprehend to the rise of the Islamic State in the Middle East.
In trying to get a historical account of the role of religion and violence Armstrong covers pre-modern times to the present and looks at both eastern and western religions. She leads us through the hunter gatherer stage of humanity to the rise of agrarian civilization which found its earliest manifestation in the Sumerian culture of what is now Iraq. After looking at the early historical antecedents she comes up with some troubling conclusions.
Civilization as we know it arose only when a ruling elite class in an agrarian society exploited the masses. By seizing their excess production they then had the leisure time to develop philosophy, science, and cultural activities that form the basis of modern civilization.
War is the easiest way to seize surplus wealth. It is quicker and much more productive in the short term than labouring in the fields and slowly taxing the excess.
Pre-modern societies were almost all inherently religious. The good news here is that excessive violence proved to be counterproductive and eventually enlightened souls, both religious and secular, arose to try to lead societies to a more peaceful and moderate path.
Armstrong digs deeper into the many facts that she marshals to find out what were the underlying motivations for societies’ development. She believes that war and violence are most often based on national pride. For sure religious terminology is often used to motivate and enflame passions, but the ultimate goal of most wars is either national expansion or the redressing of past grievances. Often young religions emerge as a galvanizing principle as people seek unity to overthrow past regimes. The founders of Christianity and Islam, as well as eastern reformers like Buddha and Confucius could be cited in this regard. Whereas religion can be used to cement the power of a ruling elite, in its earlier stages religion often challenges the state’s power.
Finally one result of looking at the histories of all religions is to become less enamoured of our own and perhaps more understanding of others religions. As a case in point Armstrong describes the entrance of the first crusaders into Jerusalem. They were a disorganized lot when they first arrived, hardly embodying the high values of Christianity. Reading this account should help us realize (1) that it is not only the Islamic State fanatics that have done awful things in the name of religion, and (2) we should be able to understand the Islamic aversion to the ‘Crusade’ concept, which they see perpetuated by modern western economic domination.
So is there any practical application to all of this? With a historical perspective we can better understand the violent episodes of our day.
Syria today is a modern nightmare. Bashar al Assad is a cruel dictator oppressing his own people. The Islamic State is even more dangerous. However these are only two of the many warring groups in Syria. Canada has now voted to begin bombing raids within Syria. Past experience has shown that the result of external military action in the Middle East is not very positive (i.e. Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan).
What to do? We should instead use our resources to help the four million Syrian refugees who are presently living in miserable conditions in countries surrounding Syria. We should also work with these countries and the United Nations to find non-military ways to halt the internecine slaughter which is now destroying in Syria.
Ottawa, April, 2015
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