Religious Freedom and the Politics of Empire

Beyond Religious Freedom: The New Global Politics of Religion. By Elizabeth Shakman Hurd. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015 Pp. 216. Paper, $22.95 Exporting Freedom: Religious Liberty and American Power. By Anna Su. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016. Pp. 296. Hardcover, $41.00 Politics of Religious Freedom. Edited by Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Saba Mahmood, and Peter G. Danchin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015 Pp. 344. Paper, $35.00 Religious Freedom: The Contested History of an American Ideal. By Tisa Wenger. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017 Pp. 312. Hardcover, $34.95 On July 4th, 2017, the New York Times reported that over one hundred Iraqi-origin Christians in the Detroit area were facing deportation under the Trump administration's “national clampdown on illegal immigration” (Yee 2017). Having entered the United States legally, these Chaldean Christians had had their green cards revoked after criminal convictions rendered them “criminal aliens” in the eyes of the state. Despite their sentences having been served years prior to the clampdown, Iraq's unwillingness to issue the men with travel documents had resulted in their de facto tolerance as residents of the United States. All this changed, however, when President Donald Trump came to power. In exchange for being dropped from the list of (so-called) “Muslim-majority” countries affected by the new administration's travel ban, Iraq agreed to accept deportees from the United States. Three months later, 114 Iraqi men in the Detroit suburbs awoke to find immigration agents on their doorsteps. In a context of rising anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States (and elsewhere), the targeting of these men by the authorities might appear unsurprising. After all, a President who had won support by calling for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” and who continues to advocate for the building of a “big, beautiful wall” to deter irregular migration on the country's southern border is an unlikely advocate for those deemed “criminal aliens.” For the men themselves, however, the fact that they were caught in the dragnet came as a shock. Many of those affected had backed Trump's campaign, supporting not only his conservative stance on issues such as abortion, but his commitment, as they understood it, to religious minorities in their country of origin. In January 2017, for example, Trump had tweeted “Christians in the Middle-East have been executed in large numbers. We cannot allow this horror to continue!” Indeed, it was anxiety over their minority status that had led many of these Chaldean Christians to leave Iraq decades earlier. Soon after the deportation raids, the Times reports, “a local Chaldean noted the disconnect between tweet and deed. ‘Then why are you deporting them?’ he wrote on Twitter, bracketing the question with a snarl of English, Aramaic and Arabic that would be unprintable in any language” (Yee 2017). Given the contemporary salience of religious identity politics (and identity-based policing), this anger is understandable. “Persecuted religious minorities,” and the ostensibly unique challenges they face, have never been so high-profile. Nor have efforts to “protect” such vulnerable persons through legal instruments designed to recognize and uphold their right to religious freedom. As the leader of a nation committed to Madison's first freedom—“Nowhere, as Americans understand it, is religion so strong and so free” (Sullivan 2005, 1)—Trump's failure to safeguard the rights of a religious minority (and particularly a Christian minority) struck many as indefensible (Zlatopolsky 2017; Jackson 2017). Protections for religious liberty have long been enshrined in national and international law. Alongside domestic provisions such as the United States’ First Amendment, multilateral instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the European Convention on Human Rights all affirm the importance of freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. That signatories to these treaties are often unwilling or unable to protect religious liberty in practice is typically read as a failure on the part of national governments, not a fundamental problem with the idea of the right itself. The citizen's right to religious freedom is, it seems, equal parts assumption and product of the liberal democratic order. But as the media outcry over the plight of the Chaldeans shows, religious freedom is not solely a domestic concern. A state's duty to promote free religion no longer stops at the border. The United States’ International Religious Freedom Act (1998), for example, codifies the promotion of religious liberty as a central aim of American diplomacy, while 2016 saw the appointment of the first European Union Special Envoy for the promotion of freedom of religion or belief outside of the EU (European Commission 2016). This suggests, as Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Saba Mahmood, and Peter G. Danchin argue in their introduction to Politics of Religious Freedom, that “[i]n a remarkably short period, religious freedom has been naturalized in public discourse worldwide as an indispensable condition for peace in our time, advocated across the world and across the religious and political spectrum” (1). What are the practical outcomes of these efforts to promote religious liberty through foreign policy? How should scholars of religion understand the coterminous rise of “religious freedom talk” (Wenger, Religious Freedom: The Contested History of an American Ideal) and state-sanctioned hostility towards minority groups, such as Detroit's Chaldeans? This review article discusses a number of important titles in this burgeoning field of study, focusing on the relationship between and the results of both contemporary and historic efforts to “export” freedom of religion. For the authors of the books under review, internationalized “religious freedom talk” has complex and contradictory outcomes that are difficult to separate from the logic and politics of empire; and yet, in a context of markedly unequal power relations, the language of religious liberty can also be creatively instrumentalized by marginalized groups. Elizabeth Shakman Hurd's much discussed Beyond Religious Freedom: The New Global Politics of Religion forms a crucial part of this debate. A staunch critic of both the assumptions behind and the results of the desire to harness and remake religion in the service of Euro-American interests, Hurd argues that policies seeking to manage sectarian disputes are as likely to fuel violence as to quell it. This is due, in large part, to the understanding of “religion” mobilized by governments and NGOs in their efforts to promote religious liberty. By approaching religion as “an isolable entity and causal powerhouse,” such policies posit it as either “good” or “bad”—“moderate” or “fanatical”—and thus the target of either promotion or suppression (2–4). This Manichean vision cannot account for the messiness of religion as it is “lived,” that is, religion as it is “entangled in all domains of human life, forms of belonging, work, play, governance, violence, and exchange” (7). Instead, it privileges religion as a site of difference that transcends the political and historical realities inhabited by flesh and blood human beings, transforming complex persons into representatives of isolable, coherent religious traditions. This tendency to classify (and then govern) groups according to their presumed religion (or non-religion) works to highlight tension rather than subdue it, ultimately “[diminishing] the possibility of crosscutting, non-sectarian forms of politics” (42). Beyond Religious Freedom is inspired, in part, by Winnifred Fallers Sullivan's seminal work in the field of law and religion. Sullivan's The Impossibility of Religious Freedom (2005), which provides a fine-grained ethnographic account of a First Amendment “free exercise” case, highlighted the difficulties involved in defining religion for the purposes of law. “Legal religion,” Impossibility argued, might bear only a fleeting resemblance to its lived counterpart. While Sullivan's work focuses on the United States, Hurd takes this domestic argument and applies it to international affairs. To this end, she distinguishes between three heuristics: “expert religion,” “governed religion,” and “lived religion.” Expert religion is religion as it is imagined “by those who generate ‘policy-relevant’ knowledge about religion in various contexts,” including academics, professional associations, think tanks, security experts, and so forth. Governed religion is religion as it imagined by those “in positions of political and religious power,” such as states, international courts, churches, and supranational governing bodies such as the European Union. Lived religion may not fit within the parameters of either expert or governed religion, although the boundaries between the three are porous (8–19). Hurd acknowledges that these categories are “imperfect,” but hopes that their conceptual differentiation will allow readers to move beyond a binary understanding of religion in international affairs, in which it is approached according to such oppositional pairings as “establishment/disestablishment, freedom/unfreedom, and separation/accommodation” (9). Hurd argues that the pursuit of freedom of religion as a policy goal has worked to produce, reaffirm, and/or reify various forms of difference, both between Euro-American nations and the recipients of their cultural imperialism, and between legally specified religious (and non-religious) “communities” throughout the world. Chapter 3, for example, discusses the harrowing situation facing the Rohingya people in Myanmar. As with Christians in the South West Asia and North Africa region, including the Iraqi Chaldeans reported on by the New York Times, the Rohingya are typically framed as a religious minority at risk from their religious majority neighbors (in this instance, Muslim and Buddhist, respectively). But as Hurd points out, “the Rohingya are not excluded from Burmese society exclusively with religious slurs, but also with racist and other dehumanizing terms” (43). In a context of political and military instability, the Rohingya are treated as illegal Bengali migrants, ethnic outsiders, and economic threats. They are scapegoated by the political class, who stoke inter-ethnic tensions as a “useful distraction” from the power struggles occupying the governing elite (43–45). While religious difference is one aspect of their exclusion, the power attributed to the category of “Muslim minority” cannot be understood in a vacuum. British colonial officials, who managed Muslim–Buddhist relations under a “divide and rule” policy, reified and aggravated the ostensible differences between these communities as part of their governing strategy (44). Contemporary Euro-American depictions of the plight of the Rohingya as “fundamentally religious in nature” work to reaffirm the problematic notion that this particular difference is of greater existential weight than any other. As such, international campaigns to ensure the Rohingya's religious freedom play into the hands of their oppressors: “By reinforcing their status as Muslims rather than as Burmese citizens or as human beings, lobbying for the religious rights of the Rohingya makes it less likely that the Burmese government—or the democratizing monks—will include the Rohingya in Burmese state and society as citizens and humans, rather than as Muslims” (46–47). Further, and to go slightly beyond Hurd's account, presenting this conflict as the result of a primordial religious struggle that can only be by the of religious freedom nations to their historic in and these of difference, Euro-American nations of their colonial Beyond Religious Freedom a of a a of their political or historical The from to in the in in Christians in and in are in while are discussed in As such, and the of the the in support of from the of this This is not a have and it would be to both the international of the with ethnographic Indeed, the of the argument is the in however, may find calling for greater ethnographic flesh to be on the of Hurd's those affected by policies that and religion understand their How they or to the into which they have been is that the to Politics of Religious Freedom to the The result of a by the this political and scholars of religion to (and the assumption religious freedom is and and that the only problem in its The is into of which is by one of the Winnifred Fallers on Elizabeth Shakman Hurd on Peter G. Danchin on and and Saba on the between the in of which an of the of local by which over religion are managed Many of the the historic and of European and Given the of this it is to these that of Religious Freedom in South argues that the South African state's to religion in the public a result of its under and In to both European and the of on religious South for their Given this the of the nation to protect religious freedom as an aspect of is for this that of the South African the of to recognize religious and in law. In the of the new African was The legal of Muslim however, has while the religious this freedom is not of over to recognize Muslim in that the have of conflict within communities as in their for example, who are to on the that they to their find with who the of and state was to an historic to South Muslim citizens the and they were under and As account shows, however, efforts to ensure religious freedom at an to this colonial The of also Religion at the of South with a the were to find the of a new would she to manage the relationship between and such a may a was the many South were in the of at the possibility of after a of and colonial and the situation it also This was particularly the for South efforts on the part of British to the of from to from being part of a national to being a and on in the of argues that the of to be religious to class, or had to be in the national possibility of is As points out, many South and and of the may all under the While Muslims their African to seeking to a South from the of the that the of an South might into Indeed, the of by the to a In the months South a vision of on the American of in which the of and state is to freedom of religion. they also the as a through which they can a and in which the political was through the of from the for the religious freedom is the product of to Politics of Religious Freedom to highlight the and of religious freedom as both and state that they not a or religious they also argue that to the in law is to that they at to efforts to legally protect the This disconnect is of a tension that throughout the in this which to the assumptions religious freedom as it is to For particularly those is with failure to might appear as an of on the part of For those of the of academics, however, this may be the only to the of the tension the of and with these legal should scholars it to a being of religious freedom Tisa Religious Freedom: The Contested History of an American an of this with the question of American imperialism, the of American religious freedom as an into the of religion, and in (1). A work of historical Religious Freedom focuses on the decades between the of and the of the a has been by scholars of religious freedom. that Americans of with them many unwilling of to religious freedom for all of purposes in this the of “religious freedom talk” over these that although to religious liberty in to the American nation as and they also of for the many marginalized groups who outside of these on the work of and categories such as class, and religion as both and of by which she “the complex of and that work to who and as and thus as by who and may the of and in the of and that although they the and of they they are also to While and religious are to the in Religious Freedom, the important to which she is that of on is particularly important an on the part of and the American to the United States as an power. as had the of the that the of liberty which religious freedom in with American of freedom as a for for this as a designed to the of and provides a to those who would Donald at his when he While other work in this field can a of state the for within “religious freedom In account, and representatives of the state the language of religious liberty to or the of the that This is in the Religion on the which on on efforts to American of the on the of a who that the of a new and to a would to in a new world and their and the of the to and which many while many the that the a religion (and was to the privileges of the First to on the of religious liberty. In one such instance, an with an to the that although the people to practice the have never and never Despite his status as an of the of the his according to the logic of the First is their religion, and they have a right to highlight the in which legal discourse can at as the of religious liberty is by those the This on and the possibility of is one of the This is not to that is a The the that religious freedom was to colonial including by those who had only been as of American European the language of religious liberty to the of for example, they so by to the as an religion and for the status of to manage the of rule” In other the privileges of by their desire to part in the of Nor is as to the involved in the language of that minority groups seeking to of First Amendment had but to and their they fit of is unwilling to those who are to such to for religious liberty has (and continues to “a Anna Exporting Freedom: Religious Liberty and American with American religious freedom to a As with work, Exporting Freedom takes an historical with a longer while both authors with the of the continues to the of Iraq in The in the of the United and the Universal the of and the of the International Religious Freedom Act of “the and the of religious freedom as law by an power can The of such is for who is in religious freedom as a or as much as she is in its served both and with of political and national of the Indeed, in account, the cannot be of the documents under as part of an American or part of democratic than political of it is this that American in the “a of the world from a of power and That is only within the particular context of unequal in of the of various of political The of and their on power is in Chapter on the American understanding religious freedom in that the military involved in its religious particularly the of and to the of a democratic one with American international security to this was the of the and had been By as a than the all of religion, to in an that the as a The idea of for the Americans on both political and such they on the the national on that was no to the American over the of religion and politics that these not into their the a that enshrined the of and state and the of religious That the the new is of the of between the of the had to a democratic that the American of was As with work, the between and of the of the that disputes over its were as much about the relationship between and on the as they were to the United States’ ostensible to with its the had been to American who “the of as a of to for the and the of and state leader for example, his Americans to accept in their while as one of the Americans at such American of that “the in the was a the as a of national a to anxiety being to the of the issues the colonial with the particularly the Muslim in the The which both and as part of the religious to the of the American colonial which was the of liberty and This for a nation to with the Amendment to the and the had to recognize religion as a for also Wenger. Religious Freedom, The by that it was through religious freedom on the that they would be In the end, and although “the of religious liberty were in for and Muslim its was by the of political the books under review, is, the about the of religious freedom As she at the recognize the or the of religious liberty promotion is not a to leave it for (9). that might the of Politics of Religious Freedom of countries and have of religious she that is no that religious freedom a and in a of cultural (9). to accept these with the by the other scholars under review, not that people throughout the world violence at the hands of their governments, and that such in religious may the they to For however, it is by to the and of religious freedom that might rather than the promotion of religious liberty she to greater in its This has to to on the relationship between religious freedom and the politics of That the to the books from such relations, religious the of this field of While a review cannot to to the of the works under a is the (and of “religious an historical product although by cannot be from local it is this of local and that the plight facing Detroit's a with violence beyond but immigration status rendered them vulnerable to local their case, the of of political the possibility for in “religious freedom the of the American Union is the immigration order. in on the importance of religious freedom 2017)

Deportation · Empire · Immigration · Political science · Politics · Religious freedom · Sociology · History · Law · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Religious studies

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