1
Ústav
religionistiky
Cynthia Enloe: 'Religion and ethnicity', in P. Sugar (ed.),
Ethnic Diversity and Conflict in Eastern Europe, Santa
Barbara: ABC-Clio. 1980, s. 350 - 60
FRVŠ
1890/2005
Téma: Náboženství a etnicita
There is no consensus on what constitutes ethnicity but there is growing
agreement that it is both objective and subjective. Ethnicity involves cultural attributes that
can be observed, but those attributes must be of conscious value to a collection of people to
amount to ethnicity. There is a growing agreement among scholars that ethnicity requires a
sense of belonging and an awareness of boundaries between members and nonmembers,
however vague and mutable those boundaries may be from situation to situation or from
time to time.'
Ethnicity is difficult to define because it is composed of an intertwining cluster of attributes
and not a singular cultural characteristic. Language, religion, territory and custom-by
themselves-are insufficient to identify, or sustain, an ethnic group. Moreover, the cluster of
attributes assigned a collective value by a group will vary. A common language is a typical
component of the ethnic cluster, but it is neither necessary nor sufficient to distinguish
ethnicity. The linguistic component in the ethnic cluster is verified by Austria's Slovene
population and a government language census used as a basis for general Slovene
mobilization. Yet clear ethnic boundaries among Africans and East Indians survived in
Guyana long after the British successfully made English-speakers out of both groups.
This essay will explore the effect of religious differences on intergroup' boundary
visibility and maintenance between two ethnic groups to determine whether there is
something peculiarly intense or profound about religion when it is a part of ethnic
differentiations and the gap between communities is especially wide. Eastern European
societies have experienced an historically high level of interethnic contact. Ethnic boundaries
in that region are rarely maintained by the sheer physical remoteness often found in Asia or
Africa. Thus an investigation of how ethnic boundaries and group integrity are maintained
and the role played by religion in that process is especially rewarding in analyzing Romania,
Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia.
Religion appeals to a suprahuman or supraempirical authority to formulate
explanations, judgments and goals. But in practice religions are markedly diverse. For
instance, the extent to which supra-empirical authorities are explicidy and coherently
defined differs widely. This is the basis of conventional distinctions between the 'Great'
religions (Hinduism, Islam, etc.) and the presumably 'lesser' religions (animism, eclectic folk
versions of the Great religions, etc.). The explicit organizational structures used to
implement clerical authority and the extent of hierarchy and integration in those organizations
also differ among religions. Thus Roman Catholic Christianity stands out because of
its explicit, elaborate and hierarchical organization and animist religion is distinguished by
its low degree of explicit organization and clerical professionalism. Religions can also be
categorized according to the extent of their taboos determining dress, diet and other
behaviors. Finally, religions differ in their approach to evangelical proselytizing. Islam and
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Christianity have ardently pursued converts and thus have absorbed a diverse range of
cultural groups, Judaism has been remarkably non evangelical.
The kind of religion-along these lines of distinction-as part of an ethnic group's
communal package will determine how porous the ethnic boundaries are, how capable a
group is of withstanding outside pressures to assimilate, and how prone the group will be to
absorb outsiders through intermarriage or conversion. The type of religion confessed by
group actors is also a significant factor in interethnic dynamics. The most tense interethnic
relationship occurs when two ethnic groups confess different religions, each religion is
theologically and organizationally elaborate and explicit, and when those religions have
generated taboos operative in the routine aspects of life, for instance diet. The intensity is
increased when each religion has a tradition . -" --- """1...;_ -;_._~;~~ "",,,,rnv;,.,.,,,tp,,
thp situation in contemporary Lebanon but it is not applicable to the situation between
Malays and Chinese in Malaysia, between Walloons and Flemings in Belgium, or between
Great Russians and Ukrainians in the Soviet Union.
Therefore, when assessing what religion adds to ethnic identification and inter-ethnic
relations, it is essential to note that there are critical differences among religions which bear
directly on how ethnicity is expressed and maintained collectively. It is not simply a matter
of 'religion' being a part of the boundary setting package, but which religion. To add
another complexity the boundaries may often be affected by a sect of a major religion. Some
ethnic boundaries persist when persons are all Muslims, all Hindus or all Christians but the
distinction between Sunni and Shiite Muslims is a salient factor in Iraqi ethnic politics; and
there are divisions between Lebanese Christians-Maronite, Orthodox and Catholic.
Ethnic communalism does not appear to be lessened when groups are distinguished
by sectarian differences rather than by major religious confessional orientations. Interethnic
hostility, however, may be particularly acute when each ethnic group is convinced that its
own interpretation: of the basic theology is correct while the other's is corrupted. Moreover,
when the religious beliefs of two ethnic groups are relatively close the other differences may
become especially important since they are necessary for boundary maintenance. Richard
Gambino observes that Italian-Americans traditionally felt more antagonism toward IrishAmericans
than against Jews or Protestants because of what they perceived to be the
deviations of Irish Catholicism. This suggests that when ethnic boundaries are firmly
established on extra-religious grounds, group members who appear to be religiously identical
will have a stake in denying religious homogeneity.
The most common way of rendering the extent to which religion sustains ethnic
boundaries operative in the study of ethnicity has been to focus on rates of intermarriage
which is, in a sense, the 'bottom line' of ethnicity. The rate of intermarriage is not
determined by religious rules exclusively since class and racial factors are also important in
reducing or promoting intermarriage. Marriage is a sacred act in most cultures and
religious divisions are significant even when they operate in company with class and racial
factors. The rising rate of intermarriage between gentiles and Jews in the United States has
alarmed many Jewish leaders who believe it indicates a lowering of the religious quotient in
the American Jewish ethnic package and a weakening trend. In contrast secularization has
been deliberately promoted in the Soviet Union and the State has encouraged cross-ethnic
and cross-confessional marriages. Nonetheless Muslims (who themselves are ethnically
diverse) are less likely to, marry non-Muslims than they are to marry Muslims.
It may be futile and unrealistic to separate religion and ethnic identity. Many
individuals behave as if their ethnic affiliation and professed religion are one and the same:
to be born Croatian is to be born Catholic. But there have been attempts in the United States
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to pry religion and ethnicity apart analytically. American political analysts have questioned
(as have the elected politicians they advise) the existence of a 'Catholic vote' and wondered,
on the other hand, if 'ethnic votes' determine polling outcomes. Historically analysts have
been interested in the immigrant experience (or assimilation experience). That interest has
raised questions about the interplay of religion and foreign nationality in shaping behavior
in the American society. Most such questions are directed toward Catholic-confessing ethnic
groups because of the American preoccupation with Church and State and because Catholic
groups have presumably had the most electoral impact. Actually the effort to distinguish
religion and ethnicity is just as valid for Protestants and other religious subgroups.
If ethnicity is merely religion in disguise, then holding religion constant should reveal
few significant differences among ethnic groups. A recent study of American Catholics'
political attitudes and values revealed wide-ranging differences among Catholics and those
intra-Catholic differences fell into distinctly ethnic patterns. Furthermore, the survey was
most directly related to spiritual values and not concerned with such differences as US
foreign policy vis-a-vis Poland or Ulster, questions that would normally elicit group
differences. For example, 76 percent of the Irish Catholics opposed miscegenation laws,
whereas 58 percent of the Italian Catholic respondents and 66 percent of the Polish Catholic
respondents agreed with those laws. Likewise, only 32 percent of the Irish Catholics favored
legalized abortion when a mother 'is married and doesn't want any more children,' while 43
percent of the Italian Catholics favored legalized abortion. The same study also found that
ethnic attitudinal differences persist among American Protestants along ethnic group lines
although the differences were less wide-ranging overall. For instance, 37 percent of German
Protestants favored legalized abortion whereas 57 percent of the Scottish Protestant
respondents did so. Kathleen Frankovic made an important related attempt to determine
whether religion is simply the class phenomenon in disguise by studying religion's impact on
American political behavior. She found that in voting behavior and issue orientations, 'No
matter what type of class measures were used-income, education, occupation, or even
residence in urban areas-religious distinctiveness remained relatively high.' Furthermore,
Frankovic found little evidence that inter-religious differences in political behavior were
being diluted over time in the United States.6 Thus if religion is a factor which helps to
sustain ethnic boundaries it is not losing sufficient impact to lend credence to end of
ethnicity' predictions. Moreover, a cross-national Gallup Poll survey conducted in 1976
revealed that 56 percent of American respondents considered their religious beliefs very
important' to them, while only 5 percent labeled them 'not at all important.' The same
survey found, however, that only 17 percent of West Germans and 12 percent of Japanese
considered their religious beliefs 'very important. .
Many nation-states have been formed on the assumption that religion and ethnicity
were separable, but that when an overwhelming majority of citizens all confessed an
identical religion-ethnicity would lose saliency and functional value. This was the hope
underlying the formation of Israel and the postcolonial establishment of Pakistan. It is
increasingly obvious, however, that even when religion is a constant, ethnic boundaries
remain and sometimes ethnic group members even hold them in greater esteem. Being
Jewish has not eliminated the sense of the Russian Jew's ethnic integrity inside Israel. This is
not as surprising as it first appeared to observers because, according to a study by Jeffrey
Ross, recent Russian Jewish immigrants in Israel do not think of their Jewish identification
as a religious identity, but rather as a national identification. Only 8.1 percent of Ross'
sample of new Russian Jewish immigrants considered themselves to be religious.s Similarly,
Bengalis in precivil war Pakistan assigned more and more value to their supra-Islamic
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ethnic distinctiveness. There was a growirig interaction between Muslim and Hindi Bengalis
across the India-Pakistan border as the rift between East and West Pakistan Muslims
widened. The civil war was not just territoriality masquerading as ethnicity; today Western
Pakistan is all Muslim yet it is still threatened by interethnic conflict.
Within some multiethnic and multi-religious states there is a feeling that religion may
cause less system-threatening cleavages than ethnicity. Thus political parties with religious
orientations are formed to comprise two or more ethnic groups-at least at election time.
Political integration in Belgium typically involved ethnically crosscutting religious and
secular parties. When these parties-Socialist and Catholic-collapsed or split into communal
wings the existence of the Belgian state appeared to be in serious jeopardy. The Belgian
political system, in other words, tolerated political mobilization based on religion but could
not withstand political mobilization based on ethnicity without a new constitutional and
elitist formula for integration. The Netherlands and West Germany also experienced
formalized religious cleavages in social and political affairs which have not caused the
profound anxiety occasioned by, past and potential, ethnic changes.
Finally, in order to see how much religion contributes to the intensity and the
sustenance of ethnicity it is possible to examine ethnic groups that are internally divided
along religious lines. There are few multi-religious ethnic groups and their relative scarcity
suggests that religion is the root of ethnic differentiations or that religious distinctiveness is a
key to ethnic saliency. The overseas Indian ethnic group is internally divided more often
than not by religion. Indian ethnic communities in Malaysia, Guyana, Trinidad, Uganda,
and Great Britain are divided between Muslims and Hindus and, in smaller numbers, by
Christians. A cursory review of those Indian· communities suggests that (1) the existence of
religious heterogeneity has not made Indian qua Indian ethnicity less real for its members
than ethnicity for religiously homogenous groups, (2) religious diversity frequently hinders
efforts by Indians to mobilize communally to pursue Indian interests. Thus in Guyana
common local political gossip suggests that the largely African ruling party has deliberately
exploited the religious split among the Guyanese Indians intending to co-opt Muslim
Indians. The Indian political party in Guyana, however, is secular and does not depend on
religious appeals. Despite being a majority in Guyana, the Indians have failed to translate
their numbers into an effective political mobilization. The divisions among the Indian
population in Britain are linguistic, caste, country of previous residence and religious, and
those divisions have hampered Indian political development in labor, immigration and
housing policy.
One of the most prominent religiously divided ethnic groups in Eastern Europe is the Czech
community. That community is divided between Catholics and Protestants, but the Czechs
have sustained a strong sense of ethnic boundaries. Similarly, Albanian ethnic nationalism
has flourished in recent generations despite intra ethnic divisions.
Religious homogeneity may not be the sine qua non of ethnic boundary maintenance
but religious pluralism within a community still has genuine consequences in the operation
of the community in society at large.