Category Archives: ANTH100

11/23/24

Ethnonationalists, Religion, and Violence

When adherents to Christianity, Judaism, Sikhism, Buddhism, or Islam commit violent acts in the name of a spiritual mission they are often responding to social, political, or economic grievances. What ever the specific motivating factors these advocates of violence often share highly charged misogynist and xenophobic views that resonates with social conservatism.

Reverend Michael Bray set fire to abortion clinics in the name of God, but also claimed that the U.S. government was undermining moral values. He was convicted of a string of bombings against women’s health care clinics providing abortion in the mid-1980s. He wrote A Time to Kill, a book offering religious justification for the murder of abortion providers. Bray also borrowed from Christian reconstructionist theology, an extremist subset of the already extreme Christian dominion theology. Reconstructionist Christians reject the separation of church and state and believe that Christians’ world domination is God’s intention.

Osama bin Laden sought the establishment of an Islamic state but was also protesting U.S. support for governments in the Middle East. bin Laden cut his teeth fighting with US support in Afghanistan against Russian occupying forces in the 1980s. While this Afghan conflict was presented as a free world versus communist oppressor struggle, the politics of the conflict on the ground were quite different. bin Laden and his allies were fighting to establish religious rule, not American style capitalism. After the Russians pulled out in 1989, from what many referred to as the Soviet Vietnam, the disaster left behind by a decade of civil war resulted din the rise of ultra-conservative religious leaders who were as opposed to capitalist styled liberties as much as they were opposed to Russian influenced modernity. Today Afghanistan is ruled by a male-centered religious group who used military force to take over control after the US and their allies withdrew.

Yahya Sinwar, 1962-2024, was a leader of the Islamist group Hamas who seek to establish an Islamic state in Palestine and Isreal. Before being killed by the Israel Defense Forces, Sinwar lead brutal attacks against Israeli civilians. The International Criminal Court prosecutor filled for an arrest warrant against Sinwar in May of 2024 for the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on the territory of Israel and the State of Palestine (in the Gaza strip) from at least 7 October 2023 which included murder, hostage taking, torture, sexual violence, and outrages on personal dignity.

Sinwar has been a part of the Islamist insurgency against the state of Israel since being a young man. He has been incarcerated by Israel many times for violence against Israelis. He was finally released from jail for good in 2011 as part of a prisoner exchange for an Israeli solder being held hostage.

Meir David HaKohen Kahane; August 1, 1932 – November 5, 1990) was an American-born Israeli ordained Orthodox rabbi, writer, and ultra-nationalist politician who served one term in Israel’s Knesset before being convicted of acts of terrorism.

Kahane proposed enforcing halakha -Jewish rabbinical texts- and hoped that Israel would eventually adopt Halakha as state law. Non-Jews wishing to dwell in Israel would have three options: remain as “resident strangers” with limited rights, leave Israel and receive compensation for their property, or be forcibly removed without compensation. While serving in the Knesset in the mid-1980s Kahane proposed numerous laws, none of which passed, to emphasize Judaism in public schools, reduce Israel’s bureaucracy, forbid sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews, separate Jewish and Arab neighborhoods, and end cultural meetings between Jewish and Arab students. A political offshoot of Kahane’s movement is currently a minority partner in Israel’s current government.

According to Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the writer and political activist whose writings are considered foundational texts by many ardent Hindu nationalists, the Indian nation is at its core a Hindu nation. A Hindu, in turn, is anyone who regards sovereign Indian territory as both their fatherland (pitribhumi) as well as holy land (punyabhoomi). Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, and Buddhists fulfill both criteria, while Christians, Jews, Parsis, and Muslims do not since members of these religious groups do not regard India as their true holy land. In the eyes of Hindu nationalists, India’s Hindu identity is important on its own terms and also because it has the potential to foster the kind of coherent national community needed for both social stability and global recognition.

Savarkar spoke favourably of facism in Germany, Italy, and Japan through the course of world war one. As the war progressed he started to explicitly draw references between the nazi policies toward jews as an example of how Indians should treat Muslims. When the atrocities committed by the Nazis became clear Savarkar did not renounce his affinity toward the nazis.

Each of these theorists shared a common belief in their religious/ethno-nationalist community as holding a kind of supremacy or divine dominion over a key geographical region, each were opposed to marriage outside of their circle of believers, each held views on the divine division between men and women in which men are the natural head of a traditional family. All of these shared beliefs are critical ingredients of a cultural view of society that justifies violence as natural and rightfully deployed on behalf of their cause.

 

 

09/21/24

Boas & Morley – left & right

There is no inherent theoretical or political tendency within any discipline. More relevant are the wider social forces at play and the particularities of history. While many anthropologists in North America consider themselves liberal in social values and progressive in economic terms, this has not always been the case.  The earlier version, especially that segment link to physical and archaeological anthropology, tended toward the more conservative and flirted with ideas of eugenics and notions of biological racial differences that are today discredited. Politically such early anthropologists maintained strong connections with economic elites that funded many of the prominent private universities.

One of the earliest political conflicts within the discipline of anthropology involved Franz Boas and Sylvanus G. Morley. Morely was a fourth generation white American whose middle class family had ties to New England’s political elites. At the center of the controversy was Morley’s work in central American during World War I on behalf of the U.S. Naval Intelligence agency. At the same time Morley was presenting himself as a practicing archaeologist of Mayan society.

Franz Boas, a German émigré, is widely identified as one of the founding figures of American anthropology.  Boas was very much opposed to so-called scientific racism – the ideology that different races of humans have different inherent attributes like intelligence, physical capacity, etc.   Boas used detailed empirical methods to document decisively that there were no inherent biological differences between putative races, rather all of humanity shared the same capacities. He took his scientific discoveries into the realm of politics where he advocated for racial equality, democratic practices, and the right of all people for equity and autonomy.  Boas’ principles of honesty and fairness brought him into conflict with Morley’s deceptive use of archaeology as a cover for espionage. Boas publicly repudiated the action Morley and others connected to him and for his pains the American Anthropological Association censured him.

Both men continued their careers in anthropology, Morley working at the School for American Archaeology (known today as the School for Advanced Research) in Santa Fe. The school was, for much of the 20th century a center that attracted a host of conservative thinkers and was funded by heirs of major publishing empire who toyed with the politics of fascism.  Boas was a professor at Columbia University were the students he trained went on to found most of the major departments of American anthropology in the 20th century.

The underlying conflict between individuals who value social justice and equality versus those that admire a more conservative and Tory future continues, as in society in general, within the worlds of anthropology today.

09/10/24

Quiz Writing [updated]

Here’s the deal -it takes work to answer a quiz or an exam.  However, it’s not simply how much time you put in, it’s really about learning how to study smart. Sometimes we can find ourselves spending lots and lots of time  preparing for something but not get anything accomplished.  To be able to manage a full load of university courses, a life beyond class, maybe a job, etc, means being able to studying effectively and not waste your time.

Smart Study means listening to what is said in class (remember the blog on ‘what’s the prof want anyway?).  The lecture gives you the ROAD MAP to a satisfactory grade (for the mark inclined -that’s a C+/B-).  Read more, participate in tutorial discussions, ask questions in lecture, talk to your prof and TAs (we can be found fairly easily), generate questions as you read.  If you engage in smart study you will do okay.

The Quiz. the quizzes will draw from lecture and readings.

Format: Each quiz will have two basic sections.  The first will involve short, fill in the blank and/or matching type questions.  The second will involve answering a number of paragraph type questions.  For this section there will typically be a set of three or four possible questions from which students will select two or three to answer in the space provided.

One of the hard things about a first time experience with university examination is it is unlike highschool exams.  The structure and content of the test isn’t laid out for you ; you won’t be told what exactly is on the quiz or exam.  You will have to work at it, but the signs are fairly clear.

  1. Course outlines have headings and assigned readings under those headings.  Read the heading. For our first unit the main heading is:  “What is Anthropology.”  This should give a student a really clear indicator of the primary learning goal of the unit -that is, you are learning about what makes something anthropology.  In class we have been talking  about how it is that anthropologists do what ever it is we do.  It would seem that this involves research (called fieldwork in anthropology), key concepts (i.e. conceptual tools used in doing anthropology), and some basic understanding that there are several types of anthropology.
  2. Lectures have structure -take notes following the lecture structure. Sometimes it might seem hard to figure out what to take notes on -everything?  or, just the important things?  (but then ‘what is important’?).  When a prof uses powerpoint or overheads it makes your job as a student a little bit easier.  Normally we (ie profs) select key words or phrases that highlight what we have decided are the most important of critical issues.  Thus, your job of figuring out what is ‘important’ is made easier.
  3. Now put readings and lectures together. Compare your notes of lecture with your notes from the readings.  If you are a habitual highlighter -consider locking your highlight pen away and opening up a notebook in which you write into it the key ideas from the things you read; don’t waste your time highlighting  everything in the assigned readings.  By the time you’ve finished highlighting your book will likely look like a rainbow.
  4. Finally, if you haven’t been reading along as per the course outline you will find it harder to speed read and catch the wave in time for your quiz.  Of course, there are those among us who can read the textbook the night before and do okay (or even great).  But for the majority of us doing well on a quiz, a term paper, or an exam is the product of smart study and hard work.

More info on exams and exam writing can be found under the ‘good question’ post.

Edited and updated. Originally published October, 2010.