university of california press terror in the mind of god the global rise of religious violence jan 2000

Page i Terror in the Mind of God Page ii Comparative Studies in Religion and Society Mark Juergensmeyer, editor 1. Redemptive Encounters: Three Modern Styles in the Hindu Tradition, by Lawrence A. Babb 2. Saints and Virtues, edited by John Stratton Hawley 3. Utopias in Conflict: Religion and Nationalism in Modern India, by Ainslee T. Embree 4. Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn, by Karen McCarthy Brown 5. The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State, by Mark Juergensmeyer 6. Pious Passion: The Emergence of Modern Fundamentalism in the United States and Iran, by Martin Riesbrodt, translated by Don Reneau 7. Devi: Goddesses of India, edited by John Stratton Hawley and Donna Marie Wulff 8. Absent Lord: Ascetics and Kings in a Jain Ritual Culture, by Lawrence A. Babb 9. The Challenge of Fundamentalism: Political Islam and the New World Disorder, by Bassam Tibi 10. Leveling Crowds: Ethnonationalist Conflicts and Collective Violence in South Asia, by Stanley J. Tambiah 11. The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia, by Michael A. Sells 12. China's Catholics: Tragedy and Hope in an Emerging Civil Society, by Richard Madsen 13. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, by Mark Juergensmeyer Page iii Terror in the Mind of God The Global Rise of Religious Violence Mark Juergensmeyer Page iv University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © 2000 by The Regents of the University of California Juergensmeyer, Mark. Terror in the mind of God : the global rise of religious violence / Mark Juergensmeyer. p . cm.—(Comparative studies in religion and society; 13) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-520-22301-2 (alk. paper) 1. Violence—Religious aspects. I Title. II Series. BL65.V55J84 2000 291.1'78331—dc21 99-30466 CIP Printed in the United States of America 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. Page v to terror's victims Page vii I will send my terror before you, and will throw into confusion all the people . . . Exodus 23:27 Page ix CONTENTS Preface and Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 Terror and God 3 The Meaning of Religious Terrorism 4 Seeing inside Cultures of Violence 10 Cultures of Violence 2 Soldiers for Christ 19 Mike Bray and Abortion Clinic Bombings 20 Theological Justifications 24 Eric Robert Rudolph and Timothy McVeigh 30 Catholics and Protestants in Belfast 36 3 Zion Betrayed 44 Yoel Lerner and the Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin 45 Baruch Goldstein's Attack at the Tomb of the Patriarchs 49 Meir Kahane and Jewish Justifications for Violence 52 4 Islam's "Neglected Duty" 60 Mahmud Abouhalima and the World Trade Center Bombing 61 Abdul Aziz Rantisi and Hamas Suicide Missions 69 Modern Islamic Justifications for Violence 79 Page x 5 The Sword of Sikhism 84 Simranjit Singh Mann and India's Assassinations 86 Sikh and Hindu Justifications for Violence 92 6 Armageddon in a Tokyo Subway 102 Takeshi Nakamura and the Aum Shinrikyo Assault 105 Can Buddhist Violence Be Justified? 112 The Logic of Religious Violence 7 Theater of Terror 119 Performance Violence 122 Setting the Stage 126 A Time to Kill 133 Reaching the Audience 139 8 Cosmic War 145 Grand Scenarios 148 Symbolic War 155 When Symbols Become Deadly 160 9 Martyrs and Demons 164 Sacrificial Victims 165 The Invention of Enemies 171 America As Enemy 178 Satanization and the Stages of Empowerment 182 10 Wa rri o r s ' P ower 187 Warriors Power Empowering Marginal Men 188 Why Guys Throw Bombs 195 Fighting for the Rule of God 207 11 The Mind of God 216 Empowering Religion 218 Postmodern Terror 224 Curing Violence 229 Notes 245 Interviews and Correspondence 275 Bibliography 279 Index 299 [...]... news of ethnic shootings in California and Illinois in 1999; the attack on American embassies in Africa in 1998; abortion clinic bombings in Alabama and Georgia in 1997; the bomb blast at the Olympics in Atlanta and the destruction of a U.S military housing complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, in 1996; the tragic destruction of the federal building at Oklahoma City in 1995; and the explosion at the World... rekindled the fear and anger evoked by the 1996 bombing of the Atlanta Olympic Games, the 1995 devastation of the Oklahoma City federal building, and a rash of abortion clinic attacks throughout the decade Like residents of Belfast and London, Americans were beginning to learn to live with acts of religious terrorism: shocking, disturbing incidents of violence laced with the passion of religion in these... in New York City and Hamas attacks in the Middle East, Jews who supported the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the attack in Hebron's Tomb of the Patriarchs, Sikhs identified with the killing of India's prime minister Indira Gandhi and Punjab's chief minister Beant Singh, and the Japanese Buddhists affiliated with the group accused of the nerve gas attack in Tokyo's subways Since these... case in my opinion—they best exemplify the world views of the cultures of violence of which the individuals are a part In the second half of the book I identify patterns—an overarching logic—found within the cultures of violence described in the first half I try to explain why and how religion and violence are linked In Chapter 7 I explain why acts of religious terrorism are undertaken not only to achieve... that some terrorist acts are committed by public officials invoking a sort of "state terrorism" in order to subjugate the populace The pogroms of Stalin, the governmentsupported death squads in El Salvador, the genocidal killings of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Kosovo, and government-spurred violence of the Hutus and Tutsis in Central Africa all come to mind The United... planning to commit one Even then I am somewhat cautious about using the term, since a violent act is "terrorism" technically only in the eyes of the courts, more publicly in the eyes of the media, and ultimately only in the eyes of the beholder The old saying "One person's terrorist is another person's freedom-fighter" has some truth to it The designation of terrorism is a subjective judgment about the. .. other violent religious groups around the world, including the many Christian militia and other paramilitary organizations found domestically in the United States, the number of religious terrorist groups would be considerable According to the RAND-St Andrews Chronology of International Terrorism, the proportion of religious groups increased from sixteen of forty-nine terrorist groups identified in. .. world where terrorist acts exist That, I take it, is largely the point: terrorism is meant to terrify The word comes from the Latin terrere, "to cause to tremble," and came into common usage in the political sense, as an assault on civil order, during the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution at the close of the eighteenth century Hence the public response to the violence the trembling that terrorism... and the communities of support that lie behind the acts rather than on the "terrorists" who commit them In fact, for the purposes of this study, the word "terrorist" is problematic For one thing, the term makes no clear distinction between the organizers of an attack, those who carry it out, and the many who support it both directly and indirectly Are they all terrorists, or just some of them—and if the. .. bombing of the American embassy in Kenya in August 1998 Shards of glass rained down from the twenty-two-story building adjacent to the embassy and the secretarial school where the bomb exploded, compounding the resulting misery No one witnessing the images of the blinded, bandaged, and slashed Kenyans could fail to be moved by the destructive power of terrorist acts I dedicate this book to these and the . iii Terror in the Mind of God The Global Rise of Religious Violence Mark Juergensmeyer Page iv University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, . 2000 by The Regents of the University of California Juergensmeyer, Mark. Terror in the mind of God : the global rise of religious violence / Mark Juergensmeyer. p . cm.—(Comparative studies in. during the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution at the close of the eighteenth century. Hence the public response to the violence the trembling that terrorism effects—is part of the meaning