Religion and Politic Interactions

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1.2 . Research Motivations

Vietnamese government’s policy on religion in general and Buddhism Association in specialty are equally based on some regulations. The administration is in charge of managing the society and religion is one of the members. The most important value that is respected by governmental decision is how to gather the national strength.

Hence, religious right in an individual is also supported, as long as the belief does not harm the nation’s stability. The government does not involve to Buddhism Association‘s internal affairs such as their choice of leaders and successors.

Buddhism Association is in return define their slogan as Dharma- Nation and Socialism. The group’s ideology is sustaining the nation’s independence. The organization is also promise to keep the close connection with traditional religion.

1.2.1. Religion and Politic Interactions

Thousands years of religion has been treasured by many cultures before the State’s political affair began. The philosophy and wisdom from Jesus or Buddha has inspired philosophers to reform the national polity. In other words, the rulers either use religious power to enhance their power or deny religion to address citizens to material center world. For illustration, in India, according to the Caste ‘Varna', the societies are divided into four classes that are priestly, rulers, artisans, merchants, farmers and laboring. They used the word, which is borrowed by Hindu and Mahayana Buddhism as Karma to manipulate the lower classed. Prejudge was not only a traditional taboo but also legalized in the country's policy. According to Caste system, administrative jobs are the only grant for upper castes. It was also practiced in the University, education quotas.

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The un-equilibrium system was generated until the year of 1950. The constitution, discrimination was Illegal toward Caste lower classes and aboriginal people.

Nevertheless, the participant of Christianity in social work, such as performing schools and medical clinics in the tribal areas, among the poverty villages made Hindu extremism acted violence. They were afraid of their ruling position in the local.

They were afraid Christian tried to convert the lower caste Hindus using social welfare. As can be seen, religion, once explained as a veneration of truth, which fissures human modesty and humility, is a qualification needful to regular and virtuous deportment in all the offices and services of humanity. The statement that Berger mentioned a long time ago, that whenever a society must motivate its members to kill or to risk their lives, thus consenting to be placed in extreme marginal situations, religious legitimations become necessary. Thus the ‘official' exercise of violence, be it in war'. The Irish and the Swiss were great examples of the situation.

In Western countries, their history can be told as historical-religious stories within several centuries. It was as complex as the political-religious problems in the Middle East recently. Switzerland is well known as a peaceful country that had not been suffered from World War I and II. Their problem did not come from the outer but internal conflict- almost under the name of God. In the 16^th century, the Kappel Wars broke out between the Catholics and the Reformation. It was due to the two opposing theological views. Churches seemed empowered by the state, there was none of the government roles has been involved. Meyer (2009)¹ appointed that these battles were intended to resolve the questions of the denomination to which Switzerland should

1 Meyer. H. 2009. In M.Jorio&C. Sonderegger (Eds), Hítorisches Lẽikon Schweiz.

Bern: HLS.

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belong. In fact, the both side implemented religious feelings of owned by target their political issues. Until the contemporary Swiss, Florian and Indrani still insisted that ‘ The Bishop of Church and the Holy See value Roman Catholic canon law higher than the Swiss Federal Constitution. Despite being a democracy and developed country, Switzerland is still on the edge of preserving the equilibrium among different ethnic and religious groups, where the voice of the state is not greater that the Church.

In some democratic countries, the elites take advantage of Religion, like a lullaby to let the working classes ‘fall into sleep'. They even reinforced under a constitution that every single resident needs to have a religion, such as Indonesia. In different approaches, the people of Communism Party ‘reject' religion by using the ‘religious freedom' policy such as China, religious discrimination, as Russia. In both societies, we found several incidents reported violence accused either within the society or between the government and non-favored religious groups.

Lenin admitted that Religion is the heart of the society which without heartily behavior. In fact, China under Chairman Mao used the ‘brand’ of Marxism and Leninism to established his concept of ‘religious freedom' in 1950. The policy was applied due to an incompatibility ideal of Chinese leaders on Religion. For instance, Christianity is believed as ‘foreign culture imperialism,' whereas Buddhism and Taoism were seen as feudalism. Based on Mao approach, Hen (1958) stated as

‘Every citizen has the freedom to believe in religion, and also the freedom not to believe in religion. Within a particular religion, every citizen has the freedom to believe in this sect or that sect. A person who was previously on non-believer has the freedom to become a religious believer and one who has been a religious believer has

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the freedom to become a non-believer’.

In the next five decades, the basis of China Communism Party remained.

Nevertheless, the interpretation of this policy rejected any opportunity that Party members were able religious faith. Li acknowledged that ‘ using coercion in dealing with people's ideological and spiritual questions- including religious issues can be extremely harmful'. In fact, their strategy on eliminating Religion has seen as very sophisticated as the government put in the account of how powerful religion is. They also estimated the result of forcing atheist ideology on the civilians. As a result, Li explicitly revealed ‘The religious freedom policy is a revolutionary slogan. If we thoroughly implement this motto, believers will gradually change from believing in religion towards non-believing. In short, the religious freedom policy is our Party basic policy towards religion. We can adopt only this policy, not any other policy.’

In practice, until 1982, praying services or customarily events were forbidden. They claimed that this regulation was to protect the non-believers from being influenced by zealous believers. Also, in some cities, Christian clergy and Buddhism monks/nuns were advised not to wear their attire outside of the church or temples. This has not mentioned to Chinese Muslim religious life was also report as devastated. In the 1980s, even though Deng XiaoPing was ambitious to introduce a ‘reconciliation and unity' plan for modernization, he still wished to control the expansion of religious groups. In this stage, we must compliment the persistence of Churches and Temples in China, Jiang Ze Ming in 1991 alarmed that the collapse of Soviet Union and especially Communism in Europe had an invisible hand of ‘religious proliferation'.

He found that China had to emerge, recognized and prevent this danger. In the

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following decades, Protestants number raised double, churches expanded to 16,000 with 32,000 meeting points.

Numerous religious incidents led the Socialist State to be undermined. Ming (1997)² reported, both the periodic religious crackdowns in Tibet between 1992 and 1996 and the Muslim riots in Xinjiang province were blamed on Muslim separatism. The Eastern Turkistan Organization in Turkey, which actively promoted Muslim independence, as well as the serious Falun Gong ‘evil cults, confirmed the view that religious activities threatened national security. Consequently, the present of Churches, Temples and Mosques are not to gain Positive Merits but become Political Challenge. The pressure under the international arena, legalism and accommodation policy is more tolerated. The new liberty and ‘separatism' of state-religion model in China were introduced with very positive attitude. However, this policy is soon aware that it is not similar to the American form of separation and other developed countries. When the success and failure of religious organizations are in the hand of the people, not the state, means there is none of financial or the government will provide security support. Would it be a huge question for ‘public utility' function inside China?

In1987, Gorbachev ran his plan on perestroika, introduced the liberalization of religion. It was not long time afterward, in 1993, a new Article 14 of the Constitution stated ‘The Russian Federation is a secular state. No religion may be instituted as a state-sponsored or mandatory. Religious associations are separated from the State and are equal before the Law. In contrast, the ‘equal' word was no longer used in the 1997

2 Ming Pao. 1997. A Bomb in Beijing. Hong Kong: The Economist.

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law. In specific, the Constitution distinguished between the four traditions as Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and other ‘non-traditional religions and sects'.

Also, Orthodox Church was made by law as the only religious organization eligible to receive state aid for “the restoration, maintenance, and protection of buildings and objects which are monuments of history and culture". The legal action brought up several discriminate issues in the society. Indeed, religious intolerance flourished among the youth groups and non-traditional religious organization. For illustration, in 2007, the Koranic commentary by Turkish theologian was banned. The ‘skin-head’

group involved to several murder of Muslim migrant workers from Africa, Central Asia.