Political Violence: Religion and Ethnicity as Influential Factors

After September 11, 2001 many United States citizens, especially those who were reluctant to or knew very little about the Middle East—the numerous religions, customs, traditions, cultures, and lives that exist within all of these countries—became frightened and easily categorized and criticized individuals from these backgrounds, and even other culturally-different individuals. This, I believe, is largely due to a lack of knowledge of the rest of the world. If one is not part of a certain culture or religion, one has to go out of their own way to learn about such; many simply do not. The readings we have had throughout this course expose us to such various cultures particularly in regard to politics, from Russia to China, Africa to the Middle East. Wittes does an exemplary job of outlining and explaining a three-part typology for classifying Islamists and how they approach democratic politics. It is not only crucial to understand these three movements for their own sake, but for the rest of the world as well and to be thus, further able to comprehend their intentions and the type of change they seek to accomplish. These movements are also an ideal example of how religion coexists with political ideologies, and the role violence plays within each.

Wittes classifies Islamist movements into three groups: the takfiris, the "local" or "nationalist" militant Islamist movements, and a last group which is considered the largest and the most relevant for democratic process. She defines "Islamist" as a term used to describe a political perspective centrally formed by a set of religious interpretations and commitments. Each Islamist movement presented is quite different from the others, the Takifiri, for instance, glorify violence as a religious duty and reject democracy as a violation of God's sovereignty and take no interest in formal politics. In other words, they endanger the future as much as the present. The "local" and "nationalist" militant Islamic movements combine Islamist ideology with local political demands and thus seek to benefit from the vocal support of a given local community; their involvement is greater. The last group, however, often operates in the form of legal parties which seek to transform society and government into something more "Islamic" and thus, are the most involved movement from the other two. Considering these three movements, it becomes evident that there is something missing: political freedom. The lack of political freedom leaves room for instability.

Bates argues that Africa is unstable and such instability comes from its ethnic complexity; ethnicity is at the root of Africa's development crisis. However, ethnic diversity does not imply political violence even though the reverse may be true. Considering the latter, there is a relationship between ethnicity and violence nonetheless, but it is minimal. Based on political information on forty-six African countries from 1970 to 1995, it was evident that the ethnic minority was at risk when violence was actively present. Bates concludes his argument by stating that "ethnicity may not provide a sufficient condition for political violence, there exist conditions under which it can become dangerous…There exists a 'red' or a danger zone wherein protest can turn into violence" (134).

From both Wittes and Bates, we have seen a relationship between violence and various other factors such as religion and ethnicity. These other factors, however, can have either minimal influence on the level of political violence pursued or can heavily influence such violence in order to achieve certain wants and possibly needs in a society. In short, political violence stems from various ideologies and in many cases, achieves nothing more than instability and confusion.