Secular National Identity Research Articles

Myth and epic as a non-religious revival of national identity; the role of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh in the development of secular national identity among Iranian minorities; studying Persian Twitter

ABSTRACT Ferdowsi's Shahnameh has played a significant role in shaping the national identity of Iranians, transcending linguistic, religious, cultural, and ethnic differences. This paper examines the perceptions of Iranian Sunni Muslims, and non-Muslim minorities regarding Ferdowsi and Shahnameh. A survey was conducted on Persian Twitter using simple items, and the questionnaire was also distributed among Shia Muslims, who form the majority in Iran. The findings demonstrate unanimous agreement among participants regarding the role of Ferdowsi and Shahnameh in unifying Iran geographically and shaping its cultural and secular national identity against Islamic anti-nationalism identity.

Psychological and socio-cultural adaptation of Syrian refugees in Turkey

We studied the psychological and socio-cultural adaptation processes of Syrian refugees in Turkey using semi-structured, face-to-face, in-depth interviews among 15 participants. The study explored the themes and issues emerging in the psychological and socio-cultural adaptation processes such as life-satisfaction, contact with the host community and future plans of Syrian adults. Berry’s acculturation model (1997) is used to form the theoretical basis of this research. Our findings revealed that psychological and socio-cultural adaptation of Syrian refugees are strongly influenced by economic concerns, pre-migration expectations, religion and perceptions of Turkish natives’ expectations/ attitudes towards Syrians. From the perspective of the informants, economic concerns and uncertainty regarding duration of stay have a negative impact on refugees’ acculturation, leading to delayed psychological and socio-cultural adaptation. Positive perceptions of Turkish natives’ expectations/ attitudes towards Syrians are perceived to increase motivation to seek social support, which promotes well-being and life satisfaction in Turkey. Yet, negative perceptions such as prejudice and discrimination, may pose a risk for psychological health and low socio-cultural adaptation. One major finding of the paper is the two-fold impact of religion on Syrian refugees: Religion can be considered a binding/ equalizing function subsuming refugee and native groups under a superordinate identity. Nonetheless, it also appears to generate social distance when perceived as a threat to the secular national identity. The findings of this research can be used to minimize factors that undermine favorable acculturation outcomes and promote factors that facilitate high levels of psychological and socio-cultural adaptation.

From the Ottoman Empire to pre-Islamic Central Asia: Theatre as an Ideological Tool

Abstract After Mustafa Kemal Atatürk founded the new Turkish Republic in 1923, the country went through a swift and radical transformation. The ruling elite made use of all possible tools to impose the ideals of the new Republic. Their main objective was to break the bonds with the Islamic Ottoman past to establish a new secular national identity. The essence of the new Turkish nation was found in pre-Islamic Central Asia. This view was supported with the help of the Turkish History Thesis, which asserted that the Turks are a supreme race, and their origins are from Central Asia. The state tried to propagate this thesis by various means. The most effective tool that could reach the illiterate people during that period was the theatre. Accordingly, the aim of this article is to explore how the state disseminated the Turkish History Thesis and the values of the new Republic through theatre. The emergence of this new narrative coincided with the tenth anniversary of the Turkish Republic. The plays, written in 1933, especially for this occasion, will be analyzed to determine how they support the Turkish History Thesis and the values of the new nation. Two plays, Akın (The Raid) and its sequel Özyurt (Homeland), will be explored in detail to give an elaborate account of the ideology behind such plays written during that period.

Islam and the State: Religious Education in the Age of Mass Schooling

Public schooling systems are an essential feature of modern states. These systems often developed at the expense of religious schools, which undertook the bulk of education historically and still cater to large student populations worldwide. This paper examines how Indonesia’s longstanding Islamic school system responded to the construction of 61,000 public elementary schools in the mid-1970s. The policy was designed in part to foster nation building and to curb religious influence in society. We are the first to study the market response to these ideological objectives. Using novel data on Islamic school construction and curriculum, we identify both short-run effects on exposed cohorts as well as dynamic, long-run effects on education markets. While primary enrollment shifted towards state schools, religious education increased on net as Islamic secondary schools absorbed the increased demand for continued education. The Islamic sector not only entered new markets to compete with the state but also increased religious curriculum at newly created schools. Our results suggest that the Islamic sector response increased religiosity at the expense of a secular national identity. Overall, this ideological competition in education undermined the nation-building impacts of mass schooling.

Islam and the State: Religious Education in the Age of Mass Schooling

Public schooling systems are an essential feature of modern states. These systems often developed at the expense of religious schools, which undertook the bulk of education historically and still cater to large student populations worldwide. This paper examines how Indonesia’s long-standing Islamic school system responded to the construction of 61,000 public elementary schools in the mid-1970s. The policy was designed in part to foster nation building and to curb religious influence in society. We are the first to study the market response to these ideological objectives. Using novel data on Islamic school construction and curriculum, we identify both short-run effects on exposed cohorts as well as dynamic, long-run effects on education markets. While primary enrollment shifted towards state schools, religious education increased on net as Islamic secondary schools absorbed the increased demand for continued education. The Islamic sector not only entered new markets to compete with the state but also increased religious curriculum at newly created schools. Our results suggest that the Islamic sector response increased religiosity at the expense of a secular national identity. Overall, this ideological competition in education undermined the nation-building impacts of mass schooling. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

The Age of the ‘Socialist-Wahhabi-Nationalist Revolutionary’: The Fusion of Islamic Fundamentalism and Socialism in Tatar Nationalist Thought, 1898–1917

This article examines the relationship among radical socialism, Islamic balanced reform and Tatar national identity in early twentieth-century Russia. In contrast to previous studies, which either have studied these various intellectual strains individually or have positioned Islamic legal and theological reforms as precursors to the emergence of a secular national identity among Kazan’s Tatars, I will argue that Tatar intellectuals’ positions on theology, socio-economic organization, and national identity were mutually reinforcing. Supporters of nationalism also embraced socialism and Islamic balanced reform because they saw all three ideologies as egalitarian and liberating.

Forging democratic citizens: mass nationalization on a local level in the Spanish Second Republic (1931–6)

ABSTRACTThe local arena provides an excellent framework for the study of practices linked to the reproduction of national identities in interwar Europe. This article analyses the transmission and reproduction of a democratic and secular national identity on a local level during the Spanish Second Republic (1931–6). Using a micro-historical approach, the study examines the processes of nationalization of the population in the town of Alagón, an industrial locality 15 miles north of Saragossa. More specifically, the article explores how municipal institutions in Alagón nationalized residents in the public sphere, paying special attention to policies concerning education, political and religious symbols, and holiday celebrations. The text also investigates how private associations transmitted identities, including folk groups, religious brotherhoods, and the local theatre and cinema. Finally, the article explores how the nation was reproduced in the family and the domestic realm. Drawing comparisons with other European cases, the investigation shows the limits of government-controlled, top-down nationalizations and underlines the importance of material culture and daily consumption in the transmission and assimilation of national identities.

The Politics of Love: Sexuality, Gender, and Marriage in Syrian Television Drama by Rebecca Joubin

<i>The Politics of Love: Sexuality, Gender, and Marriage in Syrian Television Drama</i> by Rebecca Joubin

Politics, identity and religious nationalism in Turkey: from Atatürk to the AKP

Turkey has had an Islam-influenced government since a general election in 2002. The Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve KalkInma Partisi, abbreviated to AK Parti or AKP) won over a third of the popular vote and took power alone. A subsequent general election in 2007 saw the AKP win again with an improved 47 percent of votes cast. Over the last few years under the AKP, Turkey has often been noted for the ‘moderation’ of its Islam-influenced government, a positive example of the compatibility of Islam and democracy. The article focuses on Turkey's national identity and the place within it of Islam, secularism and the political role over time of the military, often judged to be the guardian of the country's secular national identity. This involves both a focus on the role and legacy of the country's nationalist founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and on the special insular and inward-looking self-selected guardian role of the military, long seen as central to national choices of the pursuit of a secular political path. The article argues that one of the defining characteristics of Turkish identity is not Islam or secularism per se. Rather, it is a pronounced, perhaps even xenophobic, fear of outsiders, including not only Westerners but also some Muslim non-Turks. The article suggests that while Islam is part of that sense of identity, it is not at its core. Moreover, if the military has its way, which at the moment seems likely, then Islam will never be allowed to be central to Turkey's sense of national identity.

Nationalism and the Hebrew Bible*

The Hebrew Bible, though generally seen mainly as a religious docu- ment, has also provided models of secular national identity. A number of biblical motifs have been revived in modern cultural nationalism: for example, the importance of moral regeneration, attacks on internal and external enemies of the nation, and the unification of disparate groups despite geographic dislocation. The Hebrew Bible also anticipates various forms of conflict in modern national identity: between the individual and the group, chosenness and egalitarianism, the narrowly national and the universal. In the two centuries after the invention of printing, the Hebrew Bible in vernacular translation had a decisive influence on the evolution of nationalism, particularly in Britain. The Bible was essential in the culture of empires but also, paradoxically, inspired defeated, suppressed and colonised people to seek freedom. A number of modern national poets, notably Whitman and the Hebrew poets Bialik and Greenberg, adopt a free verse neo-prophetic mode of expression. The Hebrew Bible can, therefore, be read as the archetypal, and most influential, national document from ancient times to the rise of modern nationalism. As a dominant driving force in civilisation, the main root of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the Hebrew Bible has authored and nourished national identity and religious-cultural nationalism: in the belief in the chosenness of the nation and its necessarily moral foundations; its unity across divisions of class, geographic dislocation and cultural assimilation; fierce criticism of and grievance against its enemies, internal as well as external; acceptance of guilt for national failings and defeats, and grief-ridden penitence leading to moral reform; hopes for freedom, regeneration and the ingathering of exiles; vengeful hatred of oppressors, and readiness to fight and die for the nation; and also the interconnection of the personal life with that of the nation. 1 The Hebrew Bible also prefigures paradoxical conflict in national identity: between the individual and the group, chosenness and egalitarianism, the narrowly national and the universal. The Hebrew Bible is the great model of the nation pickled, as it were, in literature, and preserved to survive defeat, failure and exile. Its vivid stories,

Nationalism, Ethnicity and Religion: Fundamental Conflicts and the Politics of Identity in Tanzania

Abstract. This article explores the competing relations between ethnic, religious and racial identities in contemporary Tanzania at a time of rapid socioeconomic change and in the face of the declining authority and legitimacy of the state. During nearly four decades of one‐party rule the state has pursued policies ‐ educational, linguistic, developmental, etc. ‐ aimed at constructing a secular national identity capable of uniting diverse social groups under the banner of African socialism. However, economic retrenchment in the 1980s and political liberalisation in the 1990s has contributed directly to a series of upheavals leading many Tanzanians to redefine the structures of common difference and to a fracturing of national identity. This article seeks to understand the reasons for the upsurge of conflict and cultural fragmentation in the 1990s.

From labour Zionism to New Zionism

The evidence in this article suggests that the appeal of New Zionism is due at least in part to its ability to breach the gap between the excessively routinized ideology and current events in Israel. Labour Zionism had provided its adherents with a new, secular national identity, the core value system which consolidates a society.1 It remained accepted and served to legitimize the political center as long as it fulfilled this function. But once it failed to do so, it lost all appeal. The state and, consequently patriotism for its own sake, had become the only remaining value. Without further justification, the young regarded this patriotism as “sounding like slogans from a Zionist book.”2 By equating patriotism with Zionism, routinized Zionism was identified with what it had itself rejected. And, indeed, without a value system delineating national identity, patriotism is meaningless. The events of the Six Day War did not create the crisis of identity, but precipitated it by making Israelis aware of it. These events also favored New Zionism above all other attempts to formulate a new Israeli ideology as a basis for a renewed national identity. An ideology based on Jewish religion may not have been as successful under different circumstances. Under the given ones, it furnished the best answer to questions existential to Israelis.