Religion and violence

One must bear in mind, as David Nirenberg well remarked, that Judaism, Christianity and Islam owe much to each other, in their origins and for all time. Yet this solidarity is compromised by the fact that each of these three monotheisms lays claim to the key to the understanding of the others. It is I, each one says, who have the key to your narrative. As Nirenberg says; this is “to appropriate the authority of the neighbor's tradition while simultaneously distancing the believers from the truth claims of these neighbors themselves.” For Islam and Judaism, this ambivalence is an extension of a position first taken by Christians towards Judaism; it has become a constituent element of the spiritual communities of Christians, Jews and Muslims. It is at once a mechanism of identification and dis-identification in relation to cousins, or neighbours.

The anger, resentment and suffering which can be engendered by this symbolic brutality (this “I own the other's truth”), still present, in a gentler form, it is true, in Vatican II, may accompany, if not provoke, the counter-violence of a revolt and perhaps encourage, at times, the call to action. Unless the response to this symbolic brutality is manifested in less visible ways. Hegemonic structures bring with them, in effect, multiple strategies of resistance, which can take unexpected forms, being dissimulated, veiled....