Why Trying To Protect Religion Often Does More Harm Than Good

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By Navam Niles –April 6, 2016

Navam Niles

When asked whether religion is important in life, reportedly 99% of Gallup survey respondents in Sri Lanka answered ‘yes’. Leaving aside questions of what religion means or how it is perceived here, it is reasonable to say that many people use religion to guide their worldview in some way or form. Moreover, religion plays an important role in contributing to ethnic identities. Naturally, there is a strong political incentive to appeal to religious institutions to reach out to constituents. This incentive became stronger when the previous government led by Mahinda Rajapaksa put an emphasis on puritan Buddhism to forge a nationalist identity in lieu political-economic reforms. Perhaps in an effort to compete, recently Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, the justice minister, suggested a constitutional amendment to protect ‘religious leaders’ from criticism, even in Parliament. The irony of the justice minister proposing serious and ill-advised restrictions on free speech aside, his suggestion leaves everyone – the public, the government and the religious institutions – worse off.

There are clear political incentives for governments to align themselves closely with religious institutions. Governments have the power to confer recognition and privilege upon religious institutions and particular leaders. In exchange, religious institutions are expected to provide a moral mandate and politically compatible sermons. This phenomenon is common throughout the world. In the Middle East and the wider Islamic world, across the Sunni-Shia spectrum, governments of all stripes use religious authority to compensate for their lack of a democratic mandate. Governments ranging from Saudi Arabia (a conservative Sunni-dominated state) to Iran (a conservative Shia-dominated state), allow religious authorities to dictate social and moral norms in exchange for legitimacy. This isn’t limited to one particular religion either.

During the Cold War, many right-wing dictatorships in Latin America and Eastern Europe often formed compacts with the Catholic Church and in exchange for allowing conservative catholic social policies, governments would enjoy implicit or even explicit approval and assistance in suppressing dissent. Dictatorships aren’t the only ones who try to leverage their political power by aligning to religious institutions. In the US, a country that prides itself for a constitution that separates state for religion, every political candidate is expected to demonstrate their religious affinity. In all these cases, a political-religious alliance cuts both ways.

When governments embrace religious authority and vice versa, they must swim together and sink together. For governments, this means that any political project, that goes against the fundamental interests of religious leaders is politically impossible. In Saudi Arabia, for example, efforts to create socio-economic reforms to empower women, improve education, reduce religious radicalisation and liberalise the economy have met strenuous objections from religious authorities. As a result, the monarchy had to water-down even its most modest reforms. Today, women still cannot drive, education is still dominated by religiously inspired curricula and Islamic radicalisation is an existential threat to the stability of the monarchy. Moreover, instead of liberalising the economy, the Saudi government is forced to spend billions duplicating infrastructure and resources (to adhere to a strict code of gender segregation) and supressing any creative industries lest they offend religious leaders.

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