The Indonesian democratic era has provided hope for the growth of mutual social practices established upon diversity of ethnicity, religions, race, and inter-group relations. Yet, in the last decade, various forms of violence were often carried out on behalf of religion instead. These acts of violence were not only physical but also psychological (cultural), in the forms of discrimination, abuse, expulsion, insult, and threat. The Ahmadiyya and Shia cases, for instance, provide an outlook regarding the prevalence of violence within social practices in the community in response to differences. Why does such violence remain to occur in Indonesia? The work finds that, aside from a 'failed understanding of religious texts', excessive truth claim also triggers acts of religious violence in the current era of Indonesian democracy. It is of utmost importance that people's understanding and interpretation of differences be set straight so that any response to differences can be considered as an embryo of national power that serves as an instrument employed for uniting the people of this nation instead of disuniting them. It is also strongly indicated by the work that religious violence may be avoided by changing the understanding of the meaning of differences.
Review essay on: Richard B. Miller. Terror, Religion and Liberal Thought. New York: Columbia University Press. 2011. Fevzi Bilgin. Political Liberalism in Muslim Societies. Abingdon/ New York: Routledge. 2011.
This paper explores the ways in which attachment disruptions might increase the risk of adult religious psychopathology by drawing parallels between the possible symbolisms lying behind religious violence and the concept of attachment. It is first argued that the relationship between a religious believer and a religious figure can be explained as an attachment experience. Secondly, it is proposed that when a religious attachment figure becomes a target of slander, or an action is perpetrated to disrupt the bond with such a figure, the religious believer may be predisposed to defensive, adaptive reactions, in the form of protest, despair, or detachment, to protect their attachment bond and resolve the disruptions that threaten their religious attachment identity. Support for this theoretical proposition was obtained through discourse analyses of three case examples (Charlie Hebdo vs al-Qaeda, Boko Haram vs the Nigerian government, and Pastor Terry Jones vs Islamic radicalisation), which position attachment theory as an alternative explanatory framework for conceptualising religious violence as a form of religious attachment psychopathology—aimed at safeguarding the affectional bond with a religious figure from whom one may have developed a sense of identity and safe haven.
This paper explores the ways in which attachment disruptions might increase the risk of adult religious psychopathology by drawing parallels between the possible symbolisms lying behind religious violence and the concept of attachment. It is first argued that the relationship between a religious believer and a religious figure can be explained as an attachment experience. Secondly, it is proposed that when a religious attachment figure becomes a target of slander, or an action is perpetrated to disrupt the bond with such a figure, the religious believer may be predisposed to defensive, adaptive reactions, in the form of protest, despair, or detachment, to protect their attachment bond and resolve the disruptions that threaten their religious attachment identity. Support for this theoretical proposition was obtained through discourse analyses of three case examples (Charlie Hebdo vs al-Qaeda, Boko Haram vs the Nigerian government, and Pastor Terry Jones vs Islamic radicalisation), which position attachment theory as an alternative explanatory framework for conceptualising religious violence as a form of religious attachment-psychopathology-aimed at safeguarding the affectional bond with a religious figure from whom one may have developed a sense of identity and safe haven.
Lately Indonesia is facing a lot of tremendous experience about religious violence. Indonesian Islam which is previously assumed as peaceful religion is suddenly changing to be frightening religion. The destruction in some places such as Bali Bombing, JW Marriot Bombing, and Sampang riot in some places Islam is the trigger of religious violence. This paper discusses the repetition of religious violence in Indonesia especially after New Order era. The writer argues that religious violence in Indonesia is as natural disaster, historical process in human evolution and as close experience that presenting and relating to human history. It may be caused by political condition and the response to economic injustice. In doing so, it is kind of social acceleration toward the process of change and also being a factor of the emergence of new agenda. This is because every disaster, including religious violence, requires an adjustment and a new formulation of the functions that have been damaged.
My involvement in the study of religious terrorism began with the Sikhs. I had lived in the Punjab for several years, and in the early part of my academic career I had focused on the relationship between religion and politics in India in general and the Punjab in particular. During the 1980s, therefore, I watched with mounting horror as a spiral of violence developed between Sikh militants and the government. How could such affable, intelligent people be swept up in an encounter that was so vicious, so unforgiving?
Sri Lankan military forces and government authorities have succeeded to counter measure terrorism by defeating the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). However, their initiatives and efforts to restore peace and harmony among different ethno-religious groups in the post-war context are highly complex. The additional space given to the reemergence of radical religious groups has negatively influenced the process of fostering religious tolerance and harmony, which have been maintained for centuries in the country. Ethno-religious minorities became the major targets of religious hatred and violent attacks. At both the societal and political platforms, majoritarian religious sentiments and discourse have established a dominant presence in opposing the existence and practice of the religious fundamentals of minorities. This study has attempted to investigate the nature and impact of majoritarian religious violence in post-war Sri Lanka, as well as the efforts made by the government authorities to control them in order to foster religious tolerance and harmony in the country. This study argues that religious violence under the shadow of religious nationalism has been promoted by many forces as a mechanism by which to consolidate a majoritarian ethno-religious hegemony in the absence of competing ethnic-groups context in post-war Sri Lanka. In many ways, state apparatuses have failed to control religious violence, maintain religious tolerance and inter-religious harmony, particularly of accommodating minorities in nature. The study concludes that the continuous promotion of majoritarian religious hegemony through anti-minority religious hatred and violence would further promote religious intolerance and radicalism challenging the establishment of religious harmony in the country.
The present study tries to investigate the causal model of religious violence using SEM (Structural Equation Modeling) approach. Previous quantitative research in social movements and political violence suggests that there are, at least, three factors, that caused violent collective actions, including religious violence: 1) the more fundamentalist people are, the more likely they justify violence, 2) people with lower trust in government is more likely to justify violence, and 3) opposing the second argument: only people with low trust in government and high political efficacy are more likely to justify violence. Based on the data of 343 respondents, the activists of Front Pembela Islam, Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama, this study confirms that the more fundamentalist people are, the more likely they are to justify violence regardless of their organizational affiliations. On the contrary, this study does not support the argument for the relationship between trust in government and violence. Similarly, the relationship between violence and the latent interaction of trust and political efficacy is not supported by the data. Therefore, this study suggests that fundamentalism, a type of religiosity, is a salient factor to explain religious violence.[Penelitian ini berusaha mengkaji sebab kekerasan keagamaan dengan menggunakan pendekatan Model Persamaan Struktur (SEM). Penelitian kuantitatif terdahulu dalam bidang gerakan sosial dan kekerasan politik menunjukkan bahwa setidaknya ada tiga faktor yang diduga kuat menjadi penyebab kekerasan kolektif, seperti kekerasan agama, yaitu: 1) semakin fundamentalis seseorang, maka ia akan semakin cenderung menyetujui pernggunaan cara kekerasan, 2) semakin rendah kepercayaan seseorang terhadap pemerintah, maka ia akan semakin menyetujui penggunaan kekerasan, 3) berbeda dengan pendapat ke-dua, hanya orang yang rendah kepercayaanya kepada pemerintah, namun mempunyai semangat politik tinggi, yang akan menyetujui penggunaan cara-cara kekerasan. Berdasarkan pada data yang diambil dari 343 responden dari para aktivis, Front Pembela Islam, Muhammadiyah dan Nahdlatul Ulama, penelitian ini mengkonfirmasi bahwa semakin fundamentalis seseorang, maka ia akan semakin cenderung menyetujui kekerasan, terlepas dari afiliasi organisasi mereka. Namun demikian, penelitian ini tidak mendukung hubungan antara kepercayaan terhadap pemerintah dan kekerasan. Demikian juga, hubungan antara kekerasan dan interaksi antara kepercayaan pemerintah dan semangat politik tidak dapat dibuktikan dari data dalam penelitian ini. Oleh karena itu, penelitian ini menyimpulkan bahwa fundamentalisme, sebagai salah satu bentuk keagamaan, merupakan faktor yang sangat penting dalam menjelaskan kekerasan keagamaan.]
Twitter analysis through data mining, text analysis, and visualization, coupled with the application of actor-network-theory, reveals a coalition of heterogenous religious affiliations around grief and fascination. While religious violence has always existed, the prevalence of social media has led to an increase in the magnitude of discussions around the topic. This paper examines the different reactions on Twitter to violence targeting three religious communities: the 2015 Charleston Church shooting, the 2018 Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting, and the 2019 Christchurch Mosque shootings. The attacks were all perpetrated by white nationalists with firearms. By analyzing large Twitter datasets in response to the attacks, we were able to render visible associations among actors across religions communities, national identities, and political persuasions. What this project revealed is that if we apply actor-network-theory and data visualization to look at networks created by human/non-human (text, computer, phone, meme, tweet, retweet, hashtag) actors, we can see that knowledge, empathy, and fascination drive communication around mass violence against religious communities.
International audience ; In exploring anti-civilian violence and alleged plots undertaken in the UK by small groups often termed 'salafi-jihadi' and popularly called 'terrorists', the essay attempts to present alternative routes of analysis. The violent events or plots seen recently in the UK present a political and sociological form that is different to state-centric and transnational migrant politics, including political Islam and communitarian Muslim identity politics. The discussion of events in the UK extends to an analysis of a systematic pattern of association between youths in the UK and Pakistani militias operating in Kashmir. The origins and ideologies of the militias are explored and the dynamics of the militia movements in relation to UK events are considered.
Twitter analysis through data mining, text analysis, and visualization, coupled with the application of actor-network-theory, reveals a coalition of heterogenous religious affiliations around grief and fascination. While religious violence has always existed, the prevalence of social media has led to an increase in the magnitude of discussions around the topic. This paper examines the different reactions on Twitter to violence targeting three religious communities: the 2015 Charleston Church shooting, the 2018 Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting, and the 2019 Christchurch Mosque shootings. The attacks were all perpetrated by white nationalists with firearms. By analyzing large Twitter datasets in response to the attacks, we were able to render visible associations among actors across religions communities, national identities, and political persuasions. What this project revealed is that if we apply actor-network-theory and data visualization to look at networks created by human/non-human (text, computer, phone, meme, tweet, retweet, hashtag) actors, we can see that knowledge, empathy, and fascination drive communication around mass violence against religious communities.
Under what conditions is religious peace activism effective? Infamous inter-religious violence in Nigeria, Indonesia or Syria reminds us of the difficulties of religious groups living peacefully together.
Violence in general but religion-based violence, in particular, has been an unsettling, however ubiquitous, feature of Pakistani society. While there are economic, social, ideological, and psychological causes for why individuals engage in various acts of violence, particularly those against minority and marginalized groups are usually systemic. That is to say that either the system actively perpetuates it or passively observes it as it happens without doing anything to stop it. In Pakistan, religious violence is a result of both active perpetuations through discriminatory laws like blasphemy and or the prejudiced school curriculum and passive observation. Furthermore, in a larger context, all of this can be attributed to myopic state policies which sought to unify the nation by using Islam as a political tool to break ethnic strongholds. As it turns out, this policy has been disastrous for minority and marginalized groups. This paper seeks to understand the dynamics of religious violence in Pakistan to explain the twin attacks on Youhanabad Church in 2015. Furthermore, it undertakes a qualitative study i.e., conducting interviews with the victims of the 2015 church attack, to get insight into their feelings and how they are dealing with different emotional and economic effects of the tragedy.
Este estudio uso un diseño de investigación cualitativo para analizar como la religión y la política interactuan con los casos de violencia relacionada con blasfemia en Pakistan. Se llevaron a cabo entrevistas y grupos de control con muestras de policías y miembros de la comunidad Hindú, Musulmana y Cristiana en Sukkur, Pakistan. Este estudio encuentra que la violencia relacionada a la blasfemia ocurre en un contexto donde la política se ha usado para Islamizar a la sociedad, esto se ve reflejado en los problemas de identidad del estado, así como una relación antagonista y desconectada entre comunidades y una atmósfera de miedo, intolerancia y discriminación vivida por las comunidades minoritarias en Pakistan. A través del proceso de la islamización, el estado creó una violencia religiosa que se ha transformado en la violencia relacionada con la blasfemia y sigue siendo tolerada por el estado ; This study used a qualitative research design to analyse how religion and politics interacts in the case of blasphemy-related violence in Pakistan. Interviews and focus groups were conducted with a sample of Police Officers, and members of the Hindu, Muslim and Christian communities in Sukkur, Pakistan. This study finds that blasphemy-related violence occurs in a context where politics has been used to Islamize society, which is reflected in the state's struggle with identity, antagonistic and disconnected relationship between communities, and an atmosphere of fear, intolerance and discrimination felt by minority communities in Pakistan. Through the islamization process, the state essentially mandated vigilante religious violence. This has morphed into blasphemy-related violence today, which continues to be tolerated by the state
