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It was an unusually cold morn-ing for July. There sky was heavy with grey clouds and there was something between drizzle and proper rain. It was breezy, with gusts of wind to make the discarded newspapers flap in the gutter and the wet-green leaves of the trees shimmer. London was getting ready for another day. Shops and offices were opening up, and people in suits were hurrying along to get to work. There was a sense of joy, even euphoria, in the air. The day before the International Olympic Committee had an-nounced London would have the privilege of hosting the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games. The newspaper front pages showed jubilant crowds celebrat-ing in Trafalgar Square, with con-gratulations bestowed on the political and sporting leaders who had brought the games to Britain.

That was the morning when four suicide bombers killed 52 people and injured around 700 in a co-ordinated at-tack on London’s transport net-work. I was living in King’s Cross, site of one of the tube bombings, at the time, and heard

the bus explosion in Tavistock Place, just a few hundred metres away.

What drove four men to kill themselves and dozens of other people? Psychologists, intelli-gence officials, theologians, philosophers and ordinary people have tried to analyse and explain what drives people to such actions.

Was it a pathological disorder?

Had they been converted to an extremist understanding of Is-lam?

Were they born evil?

Did they think their actions would make any difference?

Some of the bombers were Brit-ish, and had had British upbring-ings. All four had settled in Britain and had livelihoods, and in some cases families, here with them.

Eventually, one must consider the evidence that the bombers themselves gave for their actions: in video messages recorded be-fore the attacks, they blamed the whole United Kingdom for in-volvement in the war in Iraq, for the persecution and discrimina-tion against Muslims in Palestine-

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Israel and for the ill-treatment of Muslims in Britain.

They saw injustice in the British action in Iraq. They did not feel part of the political or civil pro-cess, or that any one would listen to their point of view. This in-justice, whether perceived or real, was enough to provide the flashpoint which drove the bombers to their terrible actions.

What could have been done dif-ferently? Foreign policy aside, there is a real issue in Britain about how groups outside the cul-tural or political mainstream can have their voices heard. Should they conform to British institu-tions and ways of life, and lose

their distinctiveness, or should they remain beyond the pale, maintaining their identity but un-able to work with the traditional power structures? Is this com-promise necessary? Or is it actu-ally possible to be both engaged with British life and also have a radical, counter-cultural mes-sage? I think it is, and as long as the message abides by the rule of law, then the dichotomy of ‘for us or against us’ is broken down. Political leaders need to listen to every community group that they represent, and every group has the responsibility to work con-structively to build a better soci-ety.

Community cohesion and social justice are the results of work from politicians and leaders as well as grass roots activists. Two examples in Britain are the Strangers into Citizens and the Cities of Sanctuary movements. Strangers into Citizens is a polit-ical campaign calling for a regu-larisation of undocumented migrant workers: to make people currently unregistered but work-ing in Britain to become British citizens. It is felt that this would save money, bring black market workers into the light, and so they start paying taxes, and is also a gesture of welcome and hospitality to people who live alongside us. The Cities of Sanc-tuary movement is a call to care and love people fleeing persecu-tion in other countries: asylum seekers and refugees. Cities of Sanctuary brings together com-munity organisations, churches and other faith groups as well as

the civil authorities with a com-mitment to work together to offer a genuine welcome and support to people in need.

You can read more about these two movements at www.strangersintocitizens.org.uk and www.cityofsanctuary.com

Another face of fundamentalism in Britain – and elsewhere in Europe and around the world – is the growing threat of far-right political movements. Racist parties such as the British Nation-al Party (BNP) promote fear and hatred between communities of white people and black or ethnic minorities.

The BNP peddles myths and lies about immigration, asylum seekers and Muslims. They prey on the concerns of white people about job security or access to state benefits and welfare by mak-ing up false information and promising to introduce policies which are racist and discriminat-ory.

During the global economic

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downturn, as unemployment rises and disillusionment with the tra-ditional mainstream political parties grow, it is possible that support for the BNP will rise. The white community where they get their support are not necessar-ily all committed neo-Nazis, but are people who feel that they are the victims of a social, economic or political injustice, and that the BNP are providing a solution.

The BNP outraged Christians dur-ing the European Parliament elec-tion campaign in 2009 by using Christian symbols and imagery in an attempt to claim to be defend-ing traditional Christian-British values. One election poster fea-tured a picture of Jesus, with the words “What Would Jesus Do? Vote BNP”.

Churches work with the poorest and most vulnerable and margin-alised people. They are at the front line of tackling injustice, and can see (though not under-stand) why the racist and hate-filled message of the BNP reson-

ates with people who are unem-ployed, or who have few oppor-tunities in life. The Churches therefore must do all they can to oppose far-right political groups and speak up for the real con-cerns of ordinary people. Other-wise, the lessons from history about segregation, discrimination and violence to minority groups are clear. We must stop this can-cer in our common life.

Injustice – real or imagined - al-lows hatred and fear to grow. When people are angry, disillu-sioned and desperate they can turn to fundamentalism .

Equality, diversity and good cit-izenship have been shown time and again to be an effective counter to injustice and funda-mentalism.

Professor Richard Wilkinson of Nottingham University has shown that a more equal society is a better one. If economic in-justice is greater, it has a negative impact on all levels of society –

poor or rich. Countries which are fairer show much better stand-ards of living, educational attain-ment and well-being, health and even how much people trust each other.1

The Revd Dr Nicholas Sagovsky, Canon Theologian at Westmin-ster Abbey, has also recently writ-ten about justice and a Christian understanding of it.2 This means:• The maximisation of freedom• The rule of law• The meeting of need• Responsible action

If we adhere to these principles, we can work for a fairer, more equal world, where fundamental-ism has nowhere to take root.

For further information and re-sources on countering racist polit-ical extremism see www.methodist.org.uk/extremism

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Point of view

How about a definition of funda-mentalism that re-thinks what the campaign is fighting for? Funda-mentalism is a general human condition, shaped by a social pro-cess and manifest in our cultures. It is present with or without reli-gion, and non-religious people can be fundamentalists too. To separate fundamentalism from the problem of violence might also help us to address it. Mem-bers of a religion are of course capable of initiating change, but it is still good to remember that inter-religious dialogue is a con-versation between doctors, not the cure. If we are dealing with an illness, that is.

As Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and atheists, we all look at pretty much the same raw material. A street, a tree, a house. Roughly similar shapes impact our retinas and irritate our eardrums. Yet we live in different worlds. In their book The Social Construction of Reality,1 Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann speak of ‘Symbolic Universes’. Put simply: our mind makes something out of what we hear,

see or feel. We see what our par-ents, friends, teachers, school-mates, colleagues and spouses teach us to see. What they teach us is different according to the geographic and social location, but no way of seeing the world is “truer” than the other. The sum of all interpretations of the out-side and inside world that an indi-vidual can conceive is his personal symbolic universe. The symbolic universes of two Ro-man Catholics or two Sunni Muslims tend to have many simil-arities, but they are by no means identical.

I propose to define fundamental-ism in these terms. A fundament-alist is a person who is unable to step outside a relatively narrowly defined symbolic universe. He is

captured – or in more positive terms - he is captivated by his universe. Someone who has gone through numerous socializations may consider it unsatisfactory to live in a limited universe, yet someone else might see it as the most fulfilling and purest way of living. There is no danger to soci-ety from a small-minded person as such; the world is full of sym-bolic isolationists.

Narrow-mindedness is not pub-licly conceived as a problem; vi-olence, on the other hand, is. It appears that violent acts in-volving bombs are often commit-ted by people who are unfamiliar with, or unaccepting of strange universes. What is more, these people seem to be mostly men, mostly young, and often from specific social environments. Yet no campaign against manhood or

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youth has been launched. Nar-row-mindedness in itself does not trigger violence.

Cultures are ways of constructing and interpreting symbols. The Self is defined at least partly by naming the groups it belongs to – as defined by language, religion, geographic region, maybe gender and other more or less abstract commonalities.2 That’s the sub-stance-matter of identity. The fact that members of a certain identity group read parts of the raw sens-ory material in similar manners, and therefore seemingly under-stand each other, is one element that creates solidarity. But it’s not enough. Group heterogeneity would leave too much doubt. To reinforce group-membership, we need to point our fingers at those that are not us.3

The more fundamentalist someone is, the more easily she knows who “the others” are. This doesn’t presuppose animosity: a development worker knows ex-tremely well who the others are, those who need help. Prejudice is a natural ingredient of identity, it’s deeply human. What irritates many of us is the fact that our symbolic universes organize our behaviour, including behaviour stimulated by emotional impulse.

Take the emotion of insecurity as an example. If all the compart-ments in a train are partially occu-pied, most Swiss people will automatically steer away from compartments that have an Afric-an occupant. He is one of the oth-ers. Or a women wearing a hijab: she is one of them too.

The decisions of people in power are also influenced by their sym-bolic universe. For example, in deciding whom to rent an apart-ment to, who gets a job, or which passport deserves a green sticker in it. Fundamentalism has some of its most detrimental effects in the everyday decisions of those small people with a handful of power.

Still stronger than insecurity is fear. Xenophobia occurs when fundamentalism meets fear. It might be shocking to find out how many people turn out to be fundamentalists when seriously frightened. When we are scared, our symbolic universe shrinks. Anxiety is paralyzing, and can even make us kill others.

Similarly strong are frustration and anger. Their occurrence has nothing to do with the size of the symbolic universe, and they hap-pen to everyone. These emotions are aggravated if they persist, and they are often an important factor in the manifestation of violence. If more than one person is in-volved in violent behavior, inter-esting and devastating group dynamics kick in and events take their own course. What does fun-damentalism have to do with it? The symbolic universe guides the angry or induced fighter in where to direct his hostility. It provides the object for the attacks: the oth-ers. Everybody has at least some others, the fundamentalists are no different in this.

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Could it be that violent acts are often committed by fundamental-ists only because a disproportion-ately large proportion of those facing persistent frustrations in life are also those with narrower universes, due to their social situ-ation prohibiting geographic or social mobility? This hypothesis is plausible. Because of the group dynamics mentioned above, the number of frustrated or angry people doesn’t need to be large, since others around them are bound to drift into the violence once it has started. Xenophobia – that collusion of fear and funda-mentalism – can be used to ag-gravate anger and frustration, leading to atrocities, as we see in history. Mischievous, intelligent politicians or warmongers have often successfully stirred these in-gredients together. Nonetheless I’m convinced that violence, fear and fundamentalism ought to be analyzed and treated separately in order to defuse them. Of these three, violence is most urgent, fol-

lowed by fear. Yet I agree that fundamentalism should be ad-dressed as well – to allow black people, Muslims and Swiss to share train compartments with more ease.4

The magazine you are currently holding in your hands is part of a campaign against religious funda-mentalism. As I have tried to show, religious fundamentalism is not really different from any other cultural isolationism or claim of superiority, it is a regu-lar human phenomenon. There-fore religious fundamentalism should not particularly stand out. But it does, because of the public discourse spearheaded by journal-ists, politicians and ‘experts’. I believe that this campaign in its subtext is an effort to change the false perception that religious be-lievers have an increased tend-ency to be fundamentalists, and that fundamentalists have a tend-ency to be violent. With this cam-paign we try to convince and re-convince ourselves of this fals-ity, while at the same time we want to show the world that we are not fundamentalists because we are in dialogue with members of other religions. In a way that means we are bowing to the sym-

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bolic dictatorship of a secular dis-course, a discourse led by partis-ans of a worldview that has the same potential to produce funda-mentalists as any religion. Personally, I reject this discourse. I know that violence or narrow-mindedness do not have their ori-gin in religion. These perceptions should be addressed directly. A

first step would be to turn our fo-cus away from inter-religious dia-logue and to address those who try to make the problem of viol-ence and xenophobia into an is-sue of religion. In doing so, the campaigners must decide what is more important to them: to coun-teract the erroneous perception of fundamentalism being tied to reli-

gions, or to channel creative en-ergy towards finding innovative ways of changing the roots of fear or violence.

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