Theodemocracy – the Emerging Global Paradigm

By Garda Ghista
January 2008

Introduction

Theocracy is a widely used word referring to a government comprised of priests / clergy

who claim to represent God. These priests have full executive, legislative and judicial
power over the people of that community or nation. Theocrats are those who advocate
for theocratic governments. Theodemocracy is a lesser known and lesser used word
which refers to a democracy under religious rule. The greatest threat today in the world
is not terrorism, but rather theodemocracy due to its assault on the fundamental rights and
freedoms of human beings.

Religion and Nationalism

According to Anthony Marx, nationalism did not preexist. It had to be created through
concrete steps taken by political leaders, kings and emperors to bring about social
cohesion.[1] It was not a question of advertising the idea through the print media of the
era, nor was it through propagation of capitalism, which left out the impoverished
masses. Marx says that Western nationalism evolved during the period of the French
Revolution, as by that time citizenship was pervasive in Europe. Nationalist feeling
among a leader’s people was critical in order to engage in collective tasks such as
carrying out wars and collecting taxes. Leaders soon realized that nationalist sentiment
can be aroused maximally by the strategy of exclusion – excluding the “others.”
Language was one means for this to be carried out, i.e., excluding those who spoke a
different language from the majority. What became more useful than all other strategies,
however, was to create nationalism based on religious fervor of the masses. This again
was exclusionary, eliminating those of other religions not in the majority. Kings found
that the easiest way to create religious fervor and ensuing nationalist fervor was to attack
heretics.[2] The resulting nationalist sentiment led to greater engagement with state
issues and issues of state governance. Thus what began in Europe as religious passion
and fanatical religious exclusion and conflict was redirected by the elites towards
political identities, while continuing to have a religious base.

In both England and France, the process of nation-building was never smooth. It was
riddled with wars, conflicts and revolution. Exclusion of others proved to be the primary
factor in these conflicts. In many instances kings set loose wars based on religious
fanaticism only to have the resulting popular movement go out of control and demand the
king’s removal along with greater democratic rights. Initially most heads of state in
Europe were chosen based on religious affiliation. Over the last ten centuries, as a result
of revolutions and demands of the populace, governments moved in a secular direction.
However, Anthony Marx shows repeatedly that national unity was invariably created
using religious fanaticism. Rulers were indifferent as to the extent of violent conflicts or
the number of dead created by religious fervor. As he writes, “The passions of faith were
the stuff of which the passions for the state were built…. [A national] democracy required
prior national unity, built most effectively on the basis of religious exclusion.”[3] Hence
the liberal distribution of democratic rights that took place after creation of a nation state
had its roots in, or was invariably preceded by, illiberal exclusion of “others,” including
heretics, people of other faiths, languages and races. Hence national unity is always
forged on intolerance, anti- sentiments, and illiberalism, according to Anthony Marx. It
involves the elimination of diversity. This glue of exclusion and intolerance that holds
together nations continues in the present. Hence, it is an error for Western nations to
look down condescendingly on geographical regions today still struggling through clash
and cohesion to become nations, because Western nation-building was no less violent.

Interestingly, as we move into the 21st century we see the Western strategy of using
exclusion and denigration of the “others” now being used by other nations against the
West, as peoples around the world seek to divest themselves from Western imperialism
and search for a far higher level of democracy that can be offered only at the global level.
People in impoverished nations will no longer tolerate their exclusion from the world’s
wealth and amenities. Neither will they tolerate that their voices are not listened to, that
their ideas are not a part of the democratic process. Samuel Huntington would like us to
believe that a clash of civilizations is taking place between West and Middle East.
However, what we may really be witnessing now are cries by the people to end
intolerance, illiberalism and exclusion and to collectively, on a global scale, work for a
level of democracy not yet seen on our planet. This process would be a natural step
forward in the process of human evolution.

Sociology professor Michael Mann, in his latest seminal work, The Dark Side of
Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing, focuses on ethnicity as being a major factor in
nation-building and the creation of nationalism. In addition to ethnicity, he talks about
“We the people” as laid down in the United States Constitution. “The people” are
supposed to represent the good, moral collectivity. Yet, when we look at the two
meanings of “the people” – demos and ethnos – it becomes clear that invariably in every
society or nation there is an ethnic in-group and one or more ethnic out-groups which do
not belong, which become once again the “other.” He talks about two groups of people:
stratified (diverse layers) and organic (one ethnic group), and explains how throughout
Western history, liberal democracies with constitutions supposedly providing protection
to individual human rights simultaneously failed to give protection to ethnic groups as
well as failed to stop class struggle.[4] Thus under liberal democracies the majority
group has committed genocides and fundamentalist cleansings of other minority groups.
The U.S. Constitution was penned by 55 wealthy white men, and while claming to
represent “the people,” they left out women, slaves and native Americans. They even
wanted to leave out white men without property and social standing, but the social forces
compelled them to include this class. Thus the wealthy, propertied men were awarded
active citizenship while the remaining populace, including women and all ethnic
minorities, were allowed simply passive citizenship. They had civil rights but no political
rights.[5] Thus the notions of class, age and gender were all embedded in the U.S.
Constitution from its very inception, and gave birth to a heavily stratified American
society.
In Europe by the 18th century religious conflict had subsided to an extent, and in its place
arose the secular issue of linguistic conflict. Leaders heralded monolingualism, one
dominant official language, which led to the disappearance of multiple local languages
and cultures by the beginning of the 20th century.[6] Nevertheless, ethnic conflicts
continued, as exemplified by the British suppression and ethnocide of Irish Catholic
peasants during the Irish famine of the 1840s, during which thousands of Irish died and
thousands fled to the United States. These ethnic genocides were what Mann refers to as
the dark side of European liberal democracy. The present homogeneity in present-day
European nation-states is due to earlier ethnic cleansing. Attempts were made
periodically by idealistic individuals to create political parties that demanded one united,
integrated state based not on exclusion but on inclusion. Yet there was a constant worry
over one ethnicity dominating over other ethnicities in a region. The Slovak Tiso, who
led the Slovak nationalists in the late 20th century, defined “nation” as “a community of
people who are of a single origin, single physical type, single character, single language,
single set of customs and single culture of equal goals, and they constitute an organic
whole in a coherent territory.”[7] Tiso was representative of nationalist elitists who
disdained multiethnic states.

Jews had been the most resented religious and economic group for centuries in Europe,
and as a result of religio-nationalist fervour regular pogroms, including rape and murder,
were carried out against these “killers of Christ.”[8] Growing so-called democratic
sentiments led to increased persecution of Jews, first as a religious group and later as a
racial group. Political leaders repeatedly used the Jews as scapegoats to whip up popular
support among the masses. If not killed outright, they were often forced to emigrate to
other areas. Class discrimination along with discrimination against ethnic minorities
became fixtures in Western democracies. Individual rights were heralded but the rights of
ethnic groups and the proletariat as a class were ignored.

Today ethnic and religious genocides are happening in other countries still struggling to
attain higher levels of political and social democracy. Many Westerners look down on
these present-day genocides while forgetting that Western democracies were attained with
no less bloodshed and ethno-religious cleansing. It was after World War II and the near
collapse of political colonialism that the existing 191 nations of the world selected
anthems, flags, official languages and nation-oriented educational systems. The global
anti-imperialism of the second half of the 20th century was secular in nature, with the
exception of a minority of Muslims seeking a global Muslim caliphate.[9] In India the
potential rise of Hindu and Muslim fascism was checked by secular forces bent on
emphasizing class struggle over ethnic and religious rivalries. One by one states modeled
on socialism failed to meet the economic needs of the people, which led once again to the
revival of religious extremism, as when the Iranian people turned to Islam rather than
communism to overthrow Reza Pahlavi. The Iranian revolution spearheaded by
Ayatollah Khomeini represented the first clear theodemocratic regime.

According to Mann, the greater the infant mortality rate of a country and the less it
engages in international trade, the more likely it is to succumb to ethnic or fundamentalist
uprisings, because poverty weakens both neoliberalism and secularism. Economic
impoverization becomes the breeding ground for what Mann also refers to as theo-
democracy, or rule by “we, the religious people.”[10] Muslim fundamentalism involves
a supposed government by an elected group of people who implicitly follow the Qur’an
and Shari’a in all decision-making. Maulana Maududi referred to it as a “divinely-
directed democratic government.”[11] Both Muslim fundamentalists in Iran and
Afghanistan as well as Hindu fundamentalists in India have pushed for theodemocracies.
However, as these movements grew, the democratic aspect was minimalized and the
theocratic aspect increased, to the extent that in Afghanistan religious mullahs ruled the
country while the Taliban was in power, and ayatollahs pulled all the strings in Iran,
although in Iran an external semblance of democracy was maintained in the form of
national presidential elections. The catch was that the ayatollahs decided beforehand
which persons they would allow to be candidates. Strong opponents who threatened their
own power, such as then President Ayatollah Khameini, were not even allowed to run in
the 2005 presidential election. Thence came the growing scenario that those who began
as theodemocrats once in power quickly converted to theocrats. In such regimes, the
Shari’a becomes the only rule of law. Both Muslim and Hindu fundamentalists declare
that religious minorities should leave the country, be eliminated through genocide (as
what happened in Gujarat, India in 2002) or should practice their minority religion in the
privacy of their own homes and accept lives as second-class citizens or even non-citizens.
As Hindu fundamentalist and RSS leader Gowalkar said, “The foreign races must lose
their separate existence … or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu
nation, claiming, deserving no privileges … not even citizen’s rights.”[12]

Karen Armstrong and also Michael Mann make it clear that most fundamentalists are not
violent. They seek to make their own communities strong in the moral and religious
realms, and they oppose any corrupt authoritarian influences. Only a small handful take
up jihad, or holy war. Further, jihad is not necessarily a violent struggle. It can also be a
moral struggle for righteousness, to maintain the sanctity of the Qu’ran or to fight any
kind of oppression, suppression or repression of their religion. Only very few
fundamentalists will advocate physical violence and then incite the sheep-like masses to
engage in the physical overthrow of oppressive forces. Likewise a few Hindu
fundamentalists will advocate for the violent elimination of ethnic minorities. Above all,
Muslims will fight imperialist neoliberal threats having the potential to disturb their
religious and ethnic agendas.

While Samuel Huntington talks about the clash of civilizations as being a clash between
two major religions, Mann sees a clash between Muslim fundamentalism and
materialism, aka imperialist capitalism, which it links to secularism and immorality. At
present the greatest imperialist threat to Muslims is the U.S.-Israeli nexus moving into
Middle Eastern countries with nefarious intentions. Some Jews have their own
theodemocratic vision of a Zionist state in which Jews may occupy Israel only if they
adhere strictly to the Torah and in which Jewish law is imposed on the state irrespective
of Muslim and other minorities who reside in Israel. As Mann says, the growing danger
today is global religious-ethnic conflicts born out a claim that “we, the holy people, and
not the people of other lesser faiths” should rule the state.[13]
Theodemocracy – Definition and Origins
We first come across the word “theodemocracy” in the writings of Joseph Smith (1805-
1844), founder of the Latter Day Saint movement that gave rise to what today is called
the Mormon church. His mission was to restore Christianity in its original form, which
according to him was lost. This involved publication of the Book of Mormon and other
writings to serve as a complement to the Bible. In addition to being the leader of his
religion, he was also an important military and political figure. At present his followers
number around 13 million with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
numbering about 12.5 million members. From his mid-teens, Wilson used to tell people
that he had visions of God and visits from angels who would give him guidance and
instructions. His Book of Mormon was published in 1830, but even prior to this date
Smith had begun baptizing followers who told others they belonged to the Church of
Christ. The church headquarters was eventually established at Kirtland, Ohio in 1831.
After severe opposition, persecution, and moves to different parts of the United States, he
established a new headquarters in Commerce, Hancock County, Illinois on the banks of
the Mississippi River, and in 1844 Smith announced his intention to run for president.
That same year he was arrested for supposed illegal activities, and while in jail a mob
came and shot him dead. The Mormon movement continued to grow after his death. The
seminal point herein relates to a statement of Smith quoted in the Nauvoo Neighbour
newspaper on April 17,1844, as follows:

“…the world is governed too much and there is not a nation or a dynasty now occupying
the earth which acknowledges Almighty God as their lawgiver, and … I go emphatically,
virtuously, and humanely, for a Theodemocracy, where God and the people hold the
power to conduct the affairs of men in righteousness.”[14]

Thus Smith in 1844 made the first mention of a theodemocracy, which for him would be
the perfect democracy, in which the government would give people the freedom to
affiliate with whichever community they felt morally akin to. His dream of
theodemocracy was that the people along with the elected government would rule
together, preserve liberty together, and together ensure the development of public and
private morality.[15] This was Smith’s vision of the term “theodemocracy.” It was a
glorious vision. Nineteenth century Mormons believed that God would choose the
righteous people to rule and that the people would voluntarily support and elect those
persons. This system would work not only within the church but also in the political state
structure. The term “theodemocracy” was Joseph Smith’s neologism for a scenario in
which the laws of God would be sustained by the popular will of the people.

Sayyid Abul Ala Maudoodi (1903-1979) was the second known person to bring up the
concept of theodemocracy. Born in Hyderabad, in what is now Pakistan, he became an
influential Islamic scholar and founder of the Islamic Party (Jamaat-e Islami) in India.
His vast knowledge in fields such as philosophy and literature plus his constant activism
helped to spur Islamic movements globally. His ideas had a profound effect on Egyptian
scholar Sayyid Qutb,[16] a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood (Jamiat-al-
Ikhwan al-Muslimin). Maulana Maudoodi studied at Darul Uloom but ceased his college
studies when his father became terminally sick. However, he continued his studies
independently, and when 15 years old began working for a prominent Urdu newspaper. In
1921 Maulana Maudoodi moved to Delhi, and under his leadership al-Jamiyat became
the leading Muslim newspaper for South Asian Muslims. He participated in movements
working against British occupation of India and began translating Arabic and English
books into Urdu. In 1930 he published his first book called al-Jihad fi al-Islam (Jihad in
Islam), which continues to be considered as a literary masterpiece.

By 1933 Maulana Maudoodi was writing extensively regarding Western imperialism and
the conflict between so-called modernization and Islam. He wrote numerous tracts
presenting Islamic solutions to Muslim problems that arose under British colonialism,
particularly the domination of Western culture on Muslim society, which aspect
concerned him more than British military dominance. He then founded an academic
center in Pathankot, Punjab province that focused on teaching Islamic political
philosophy. By this point Maulana Maudoodi’s highly critical views of Western ideas had
crystallized. He considered concepts such as nationalism, pluralism and feminism as
Western strategies to undermine traditional Muslim culture. He wanted to start a struggle
(“jihad”) aimed towards uniting the entire humanity under an Islamic government.

By the 1940s Maulana Maudoodihad moved to the newly created Pakistan, where he
condemned the state government, saying that Pakistanis had physical freedom but
mentally remained enslaved to the British. He wanted an end to the British system of
government and longed to bring about his theodemocracy, in which the people would
continue to have a voice but in the final analysis were controlled by priests who would
ensure that Islamic law was followed. In 1953 the Pakistani government arrested
Maulana Maudoodi and sentenced him to death. Due to a global rally for his release, the
government relented and finally released him. Imprisonment was later to give him a
heightened appreciation of the necessity of democracy within a governmental structure.
However, he continued to preach the principle of a democratic state wholly subordinate
to Islamic law. He began to write extensively against capitalism, and while studying neo-
classical and Keynesian economic models, he refused to use western economic
vocabulary, saying that the capitalist model with its premise of unlimited human wants
and advocating of individual profit as the highest value, along with its complete denial of
ethical evaluation, made it anathema to the Muslim way of life.[17] In his book A Fury
For God: the Islamist Attack on America, Malise Ruthven writes:

“In the true Islamic state, for which Maudoodi coined the term “theodemocracy,” the
representatives of the people may be co-opted into the national assembly rather than
elected, on the grounds that truly virtuous people will not always put themselves forward.
As Yousef Choueiri has observed, Maudoodi’s theodemocracy is an “ideological state in
which legislators do not legislate, citizens only vote to reaffirm the permanent
applicability of God’s laws, women rarely venture outside their homes lest social
discipline be disrupted, and non-Muslims are tolerated as foreign elements required to
express their loyalty by means of paying a financial levy.”[18] [19]
The prime objective of the Islamist state in the view of Maudoodi was “to command what
is amicable and forbid what is indecent,” as per the Qur’an. These words can be used to
control every aspect of human life, including economic, social and political. No aspect of
life would be left untouched by the clergy, whose duty would be to enforce the practice of
morality in every sphere. Maudoodi’s ideas seem contradictory in that, while on the one
hand espousing what is essentially total control over human lives by the clergy, he
simultaneously advocates for heads of state to be elected through free elections and for
fixed terms. Parliament members would also be elected by the people. He believed that
the three branches of government – executive, legislative and judiciary – should function
with equivalent power distributed amongst them, and that no one, including the head of
state, be above the law, i.e., the judiciary.[20] Maudoodi insisted that his proposed
governmental model is not a theocracy or religious state but rather a theodemocracy. He
also referred to his model as a “nomocracy” (government of the law), that is, a
government elected by the people but conforming in every way to the laws of the Qur’an
and Sunna.[21] In his later writings, Maudoodi leaned more and more towards a
parliamentary democracy, with universal franchise, regular elections, human rights and
civil liberties, along with the potential of multiple political parties. His later
preoccupation with procedural justice along with the fact that he spent his final years in
the United States were likely a reaction to his periods in prison and censoring of his
writings and speeches by various Pakistani regimes. Thus he espoused a theodemocracy
while later leaning more heavily towards democracy.

Fundamentalism in the Modern World

As was stated earlier, fundamentalism should not be equated with violence.
Fundamentalism is a growing phenomena in every major religion, including Christianity,
Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism, and even in Sikhism and Confucianism. The
term “fundamentalism” was coined by American Protestant Christians who desired to
return to the fundamentals of their faith. According to Karen Armstrong, Muslims resent
this word used in connection with Islam, as they consider themselves as having entirely
different values and ideals in relation to Christian fundamentalists. In many cases it
would be more accurate to use the word “traditionalists.”[22] Regretfully the American
media has convoluted the word “fundamentalism” to such an extent that it is now wholly
associated with “terrorists.” According to Armstrong, the typical characteristic of
fundamentalists is that they retain their sense of being “by retreating from mainstream
society and creating, as it were, enclaves of pure faith where they try to keep the godless
world at bay and where they try to live a pure religious life.”[23] In these spheres of
seclusion, she says, they often try to think of ways to convert the rest of the outside world
and bring them under their influence and to a more godly way of life. Irrespective of
whether it is Christians, Jews, Muslims or Hindus, the fundamentalists all fear securalism
and its accompanying materialist way of life.

Secularists can also be extremists. As an example, when Ataturk began modernizing

Turkey, he shut down Islamic madrassas, drove the mystical Sufis underground and
forced men and women to abandon their indigenous dress and switch to western clothes.
When Reza Pahlavi came to power in Iran, his police used to roam the streets and tear off
women’s veils, ripping them to pieces on the spot.[24] Sayyid Qutb, the mentor of
Osama bin Laden, was thrown into prison along with thousands of other Muslims only
for handing out pamphlets or attending a meeting of the Muslim Brotherhood. Secularist
President Nasser had thousands executed over the 15 years Qutb spent in prison. Seeing
Nasser’s determination to bring religion into the purely private sphere of the home and
his brutal torture and slaughter of thousands of religious-minded Muslims was what
drove Qutb into the arms of fundamentalism.[25] The theodemocracy being pushed
forward by fundamentalists today is their solution to what they consider as the
destruction of extant religions by secularists. It is for them a necessary strategy in their
fight for survival.

Theodemocracy in Iran
According to Armstrong, Ayatollah Khomeini was a modern man of the 20th century,
who created a theodemocracy to adjust with evolving political democracies.
Fundamentalism has erupted all over the world and will not go away. It is a new
phenomenon in reaction to the new phenomenon of people’s cries for more democracy,
more equality and more voice in governmental affairs.

While discussing Muslim fundamentalism, it is important to again bear in mind that only
a very small fraction of fundamentalists are “terrorists.” To think otherwise is
government propaganda and media distortion. A parallel can be drawn with the Irish
Revolutionary Army (IRA). No one called the IRA Catholic terrorists. But in fact, in
modern parlance, they were.

Modern Iran was created from an Islamic revolution. While it pretended to uphold the
cause of oppressed persons, in fact the one significant change was that Iranian
nationalism changed from secular to religious.[26] It is the first Islamic state that has
elaborated a theoretical / theological framework for its governmental structures. As a
consequence of changes and additions made in 1979 to the Iranian constitution, there are
now several constitutional bodies with overlapping powers working sometimes in
conjunction and sometimes in opposition to other power centers such as revolutionary
foundations, paramilitary associations and other autonomous associations dominated
either by political factions or by particular clerics.[27]

Iran is the world’s first theodemocracy because even though the clerics rule, there is a
vestige of democratic process, via presidential and parliamentary elections. The idea of
Iran was that only “good” Shia Muslims should stand for office. After Khomeini, there
was a reformist movement by Ayatollah Khatemi that sought to increase the level of
democracy and freedom in the society, via reducing censorship and allowing freedom of
the press. By 2004, however, the Islamic paramilitary organizations associated with the
clerics had shut down many newspapers by violence. In 2005 the Council of Guardians
took the unprecedented step of disqualifying hundreds of reformist candidates from
standing for elections. This led to the election of Mahmud Ahmedinejad, who further
tightened the repression by banning liberal professors from teaching in universities,
taking away student scholarships and expelling radical students entirely from universities.
Presently the three-way struggle between the clerics, political factions, and the common
people clamoring for greater democracy appears to be dominated by the Shiite clergy
who espouse an increasingly nationalistic (rather than Islamic) stance in the face of the
Iraq war and never-ending threats by the United States government to invade Iran. The
result is an intensification of theodemocracy. While in 2003 President Khatami was
attempting to move Iran towards greater conciliation with Western countries and towards
a genuine theodemocracy, i.e., allowing the common people a greater voice, since the
election of President Ahmedinejad the political climate has moved in the direction of the
all-powerful clerics. In 2003 Iran celebrated the 24th anniversary of the Islamic
Revolution; however, turnout was low as the common people continue to be denied
promised rights. Inflation was at 15 percent with 20 percent unemployment. Twenty-five
percent of young Iranians leave Iran to live abroad.[28] The Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Khameini along with the 12-member Guardian Council continues to hold a tight grip in
the political sphere.

More recently Ahmedinejad has begun moving the country from a theodemocracy
towards an outright theocracy. According to Iranian journalist Omid Memarian,[29] a
power struggle is presently taking place between two clerical factions to gain control of
Iran’s Assembly of Experts. One faction led by former president Hashemi Rafsanjani
leans towards greater secularism and democracy. The other faction led by the radical
Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi supports return to complete Islamic government wherein the
ruler is chosen by God through His sole representative, who at present is the Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Thus, if Yazdi’s faction wins this struggle, elections and
any other semblance of democracy will vanish from Iran as it becomes a complete
theocracy with accompanying maximum suppression, oppression and repression. On
December 15, 2006 the 86-member Assembly of Experts (clerics) will hold a meeting to
elect the supreme leader who has total control and power over people and institutions in
Iran, including the president, if he wishes to use that power.[30] Ahmadinejad has
aligned himself closely with the radical Yazdi faction.

The Islamic revolution of 1979 was ground-breaking in that for the first time religious
clerics engaged themselves in rewriting Iran’s constitution to align its laws and dictates
more closely with Islamic or specifically Shi’ite jurisprudence. They continued to make
adjustments and amendments to the constitution throughout the 1980s and early 1990s in
continuation of the process begun by Ayatollah Khomeini to create not a theocracy but a
theodemocracy,[31] as we have described earlier. The Mandate of the Jurists became the
new basis of Iranian Fundamental Law, which was a revolutionary change in Shi’ism.
Changes to this law were the efforts by Muslim religious clerics to purge earlier Iranian
law of all western secularism and liberalism. While Western-educated intellectuals began
to dominate the writing of the constitution, Tehran University law professor Naser
Katouziyan wrote as follows to the clerics:

“This right belongs to you. It is those knowledgeable in Islam who may express an
opinion on the law of Islam. The constitution of the Islamic Republic means the
constitution of Islam. Don’t sit back while foreignized intellectuals, who have no faith in
Islam, give their views and write the things they write. Pick up your pens and in the
mosques, from the altars, in the streets and bazaars, speak of the things that in your view
should be included in the constitution.”

Adhering to Katouiziyan’s advice, the clerics proceeded to fill the Iranian constitution
with Khomeini’s ideas for a theocratic state while adjusting with the essence of a modern
nation-state. These changes led to the first theodemocracy. The changes further created
the Fundamental Law which superseded the previous more secular constitution and
separated the new version from all other modern constitutions. The Preamble to the
Constitution begins by saying, in the name of God, and proceeds with a brief history of
the Islamic revolution, stating that the Fundamental Law is the attempt to cleanse Islam
of western secular and materialist forces that had invaded their country. The
Fundamental Law placed severe restrictions on individual liberties. Unarmed gatherings
and demonstrations were forbidden. Again, as may be evidenced by the December 2006
elections, we are watching Iran move away from theodemocracy, containing some
semblance of democracy, towards a complete theocracy, which will involve maximum
suppression, repression and oppression of the people.

Christian Theodemocracy in the United States

Most Americans do not take seriously the rising fundamentalism and concurrent
theodemocracy in the United States. Theodemocracy is providing a vehicle for religious
ideologues to control the society. No one on the religious right says that Jerry Falwell or
Pat Robertson should run the country. But they do say that the people who run for
president should be good Christians and that the government should be run according to
Christian values. Pluralism in America has evolved from a fight against religion – or
church ideology. What we see today in all countries is a resurgence of religious ideology
over the society.

In the United States the Christian right has conducted on assault on women’s rights via
attempting to overturn Roe versus Wade. It has conducted an assault on ethnic minorities,
as evidenced by the recent crackdown on illegal immigrants. The religious-right
dominated Senate and Congress had no interest to renew the Voting Rights Act in the
summer of 2006. The same religious-right controlled Florida government denied millions
of African-Americans the right to vote on one pretext or another. The same religious-
right controlled federal government treated African-Americans like caged animals –
instead of traumatized refugees - after Katrina hit the shores of New Orleans and the
crucial dike broke flooding the low-lying, impoverished parts of the city. Above and
beyond the war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the supreme international crime of
illegal pre-emptive invasion of another nation-state, the prime reason that Bush and
Cheney should be impeached today is because they have plundered the middle-class and
poor American people and handed their taxes to the rich, creating the greatest wealth gap
since just prior to the Great Depression of the 1930s. The religious right has converted
the poor people of America into the “others” and carries on the process of exclusion with
ever greater intensity, as the Senate cuts back on Headstart programs, reduces Medicare
and Medicaid benefits, and passed a fraudulent health care package that punishes the
elderly. Last but not least, Christian fundamentalists have conduced a witch-hunt against
homosexuals, and even attempted to add an amendment to the U.S. Constitution banning
gay marriages.

Conclusion - Countering Fundamentalism

Some may think that the antidote to fundamentalism is increased secularism. However,
according to Sojourners editor-in-chief Jim Wallis, this is not the solution. Secularism for
the fundamentalist means more materialism, more racism and more poverty and violence.
It creates a scenario that is ripe for theocracy. The best antidote to a bad religion is to
offer a better religion. If fundamentalism takes religion too seriously, then secularists
will say to take it less seriously. But the correct answer according to Wallis is “to take
faith more seriously than fundamentalism sometimes does. The best response is to
critique by faith the accommodations of fundamentalism to theocracy and violence and
power and to assert the vital religious commitments that fundamentalists often leave out –
namely compassion, social justice, peacemaking, religious pluralism, and… democracy
as a religious commitment.”[32] Or as Martin Luther King stated: “The church must be
reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of
the state.”[33]

When the world today is faced with people’s voices everywhere clamoring for greater
democracy and a greater voice in economic and political forces that govern their lives,
how can the fundamentalists convince the masses of the correctness of their path? They
would have to demonstrate that they can discuss in a democratic setup and win their
arguments in a democratic manner, through the deep conviction of their beliefs. Again,
Wallis, speaking with real vision, says that politics today is becoming less and less about
ideological differences and more about what kind of people do we want to be, what kind
of world do we want, what kind of personal values do we imbibe – moral and spiritual
values.[34] The real debate now is not between fundamentalism and secularism. The real
debate to be is about cynicism versus hope. It is not about bringing more dogma to the
table. It is about bringing your shovel and planting trees to bring back the rainwater that
will cause communities to flourish. It is about good collective actions, not religious
dogma, to will bring hope to humanity. It is about introducing a new, greatly expanded
consciousness that refuses to become bogged down in petty boxes of race, class, caste,
gender, nation, ethnicity and religion. It is also a consciousness that goes way beyond
Bennett’s idea of mere integration - a worldview in the tradition of great mystics who
learned Supreme truths by rising above their religions to visualize and then propagate one
universal humanity. In the words of Shrii Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar, the greatest renaissance
man of the 20th century:

“The devotional sentiment is the highest and most valuable treasure of humanity. This
element of devotion, the most precious treasure of humanity, must be preserved most
carefully. Because it is such a tender inner asset, to preserve it from the onslaughts of
materialism, one must build a protective force around it, just as people put up a guard-rail
around a small tender plant. Now the question is, what is this protective fence? It is a
proper philosophy which will establish the correct harmony between the spiritual and
material worlds, and be a perennial source of inspiration for the onward movement of
society….

All molecules, atoms, electrons, protons, positrons and neutrons are the veritable
expressions of the same Supreme Consciousness. Those who remember this reality, who
keep this realization ever alive in their hearts, are said to have attained perfection in life.
They are the real devotees….When the underlying spirit of humanism is extended to
everything, animate and inanimate, in this universe – I have designated this as
Neohumanism. This Neohumanism will elevate humanism to universalism, the cult of
love for all created beings of this universe….

When this surging Neohumanism overflows in all directions, making all things sweet and
blissful, unifying individual life with collective life and transforming this earth into a
blissful heaven – that very state of supreme fulfillment is the state of spirituality as a
mission. That is the highest state of attainment in human life, the source of all
inspiration.”[35]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Notes
[1] Anthony W. Marx, Faith in Nation: Exclusionary Origins of Nationalism, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2003, p. 191.

[2] Ibid, p. 193.

[3] Ibid, p. 197.

[4] Michael Mann, The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, p. 55-56.

[5] Ibid, p. 56.

[6] Ibid, p. 59.

[7] Ibid, p. 63.

[8] Ibid, p. 64.

[9] Ibid, p. 510.

[10] Ibid, p. 513.

[11] As it has manifested in Iran, the phrase “divinely-directed democratic government”

is an oxymoron, with the “divinely-directed” clergy maintaining tight control over the so-
called democratically elected leaders and exerting still tighter control over the general
populace through repression, oppression and suppression, as witnessed by countless
newspapers and television stations being shut down just in the past five years and anti-
clergy political bloggers being given 14-year prison sentences.

[12] Garda Ghista, The Gujarat Genocide: A Case Study in Fundamentalist Cleansing,
Bloomington: Authorhouse Publishers, November 2006.

[13] Michael Mann, The Dark Side of Democracy, p. 521.

[14] Timothy L. Wood, “Prophet and the Presidency: Mormonism and politics in Joseph
Smith’s 1844 presidential campaign.” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society,
Summer 2000.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Qutb’s writings were later to have a profound influence on the worldview of Osama
bin Laden.

[17] While Maulana Maududi was one of the first to coin the neologism of
theodemocracy, it is unfortunate that he likewise advocated a Muslim extremism which
led to implementation of punishment related to “blasphemy” and Hudood” laws. Due to
enactment of these laws, thousands of women and members of minorities in Pakistan
have been tortured and murdered.

[18] Financial levy refers to the jizya.

[19] Malise Ruthven, A Fury for God: the Islamist Attack on America, London: Granta,
2002.

[20] The realiy may be different, as it is in the United States where Bush has thrown the
600-year-old Magna Carta to the winds.

[21] Mumtaz Ahmad, “Islamic Fundamentalism in South Asia: The Jamaat-I-Islami and
the Tablighi Jamaat of South Asia,” in Fundamentalisms Observed, ed. by Martin E.
Marty and R. Scott Appleby, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991, p. 489.

[22] “Fundamentalism and the Modern World,” A Dialogue with Karen Armstrong,
Susannah Heschel, Feisal Abdul Rauf and Jim Wallis, Sojourners Magazine, March-April
2002.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Ibid. Qutb was himself executed by President Nasser in 1966.

[26] Maurizio Martellini and Riccardo Redaelli, “The West perception of the Islamic
Republic of Iran: the normality of a peculiar State or the peculiarity of a normal State?”
Presentation to the Institute for Political and International Studies (IPIS), Tehran, Iran,
June 2003.

[27] Martellini and Redaelli

[28] Debarshi Dasgupta, “Young and senile,” The Iranian (Teheran), February 11, 2003.

[29] Omid Memarian is also a civil-society activist who won the Human rights Watch’s
highest honor, the Human Rights Defender Award, in 2005.

[30] Omid Memarian, “Ahmadinejad’s Divine Inspiration,” Inter Press Service, 28

October, 2006.

[31] Said Amir Arjomand, Shi’ite Jurisprudence and Constitution Making in the Islamic
Republic of Iran,” in Fundamentalisms and the State: Remaking Polities, Economies, and
Militance, ed. by Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1993.

[32] Ibid. Note: This idea of Wallis is a revolutionary idea that contradicts all normative
thinking on how to combat the rising fundamentalism. It is the most important point I
read of all my readings for this paper. Normative thinking says, move towards less
religion. Wallis says, move towards more religion but better religion. In my view, he
wants to move closer towards pure spirituality, thus breaking the bitter boundaries of
religious boxes.

[33] “Fundamentalism in the Modern World.”

[34] Ibid.

[35] Shrii Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar, Liberation of Intellect: Neo-Humanism, Kolkata:

Ananda Marga Publications, 1999.

Copyright The Author 2008