We are concerned with a specific aspect of the reaction to globalization—namely, the perception that it is a threat to civilizational identity and integrity. And it is a particular type of reaction that we shall focus upon.

While there have been varied reactions to the challenge to civilizational identity, it is those who have chosen to re-assert their own identity in an exclusive manner that will be the subject of our analysis. This exclusive reassertion of identity is taking place in a number of countries. In India it has taken the form of Hindu revivalism; in Pakistan, Indonesia, and Malaysia, there is Islamic revivalism; and in Sri Lanka there is Buddhist revivalism.

Let us clarify, at the outset, that revivalism in all these countries is not due entirely to globalization or even to Western colonial dominance. The failure of so-called secular elites and secular ideologies to overcome the challenge of poverty and destitution among the masses; corruption and abuse of power at the apex of society; political repression and authoritarianism; and latent or manifest antagonism towards the Other within one’s milieu, have all contributed towards religious revivalism.[1] Globalization is a factor insofar as its dominant power—which mirrors Western hegemony—is seen as a formidable obstacle to the revivalist desire to build an alternative culture and civilization that is authentic, that is rooted in one’s own tradition and patrimony.[2]

This explains why in India, the Hindu revivalists (together with other groups) have been battling some of the symbols of globalization—Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonalds outlets, Kelloggs cereals firm, and Coca-Cola corporation. They have also sought to protect Indian interests in the face of the WTO’s intellectual property rights regime. Even the participation of Hindu girls in beauty pageants, viewed as demeaning to the religion, was proof of the negative side of globalization. For Islamic revivalists in Malaysia, on the other hand, pornography on the Net and the propagation of “yellow culture” are among the adverse consequences of globalization that have to be repelled and resisted. They have also been critical of WTO’s investment rules, which are detrimental to the interests of developing nations.

However, it is not on issues related to the economic and cultural dimensions of globalization that revivalist thinking is a problem, it is in their understanding of, and approach to their own tradition and how they should relate to the Other that the revivalists seem to falter. The Hindu revivalists, for instance, emphasize rituals and symbols connected with their religion. Building a temple, resurrecting an ancient rite, or ensuring that a certain ritual is meticulously observed, would be the essence of faith for the revivalists. At the same time, they are determined to rewrite Indian history, purportedly to give Hinduism its legitimate place. This is part of the attempt to right the wrongs allegedly committed against the Hindus by Muslims, Christians, and other enemies of the religion. Since the mainstay of the ruling coalition in India is a Hindu revivalist party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the revivalists are in a position to implement at least a part of their agenda.

Not unexpectedly, the activities of the BJP and the revivalists have generated some apprehension among the large Muslim and small Christian minorities. The destruction of India’s oldest mosque, the Babri mosque, in Delhi in 1992 was an example of the zealotry that the revivalists had unleashed .[3] The religious riots that followed the Babri incident, first in Delhi then in Bombay, which claimed thousands of lives, revealed in all their ugliness the threat that religious fanaticism posed to Indian society. Muslim fears about Hindu communalism are shared to some extent by the Christians. A couple of dastardly killings of Christians, allegedly by Hindus, have only aggravated their sense of insecurity.

Religious revivalism of this sort with its pronounced antipathy towards the Other, obviously does not help interfaith or intercivilizational dialogue. If anything, it widens the gulf between the communities. Unfortunately, this is what is also happening in Pakistan, where fanatical elements within the Muslim majority have been utterly callous in their attitude towards the Christian and Hindu minorities and in Sri Lanka, where a small group of Buddhist monks are in the forefront of a chauvinistic movement to constrict further the rights of the Tamil minority.

In Malaysia, the situation is somewhat different. The Islamic revivalists are, on the whole, more accommodative in their approach to the non-Muslim minorities, compared to most other countries in the region. But then the minorities constitute almost 40 per cent of the population. The revivalists profess an interest in dialoging with them though it appears from the meetings that have taken place that they are only keen on propagating their version of an Islamic state to the non-Muslims. They have yet to appreciate the simple fact that the quintessence of dialogue is listening and learning. [4] Listening to the other’s story and learning from their experience.

The track record of the revivalists in different Asian settings demonstrates that when groups return to religion and re-assert their identity, it need not lead to more amicable inter-community relations. On the contrary, it can even make the situation much worse especially if there are other conditions present that portend towards conflict.

[1] Religious revivalism in the context of Islam in Malaysia is the subject of Chandra Muzaffar’s book Islamic Resurgence in Malaysia, Petaling Jaya: Fajar Bakti, 1987.

[2] The problem of identity in contemporary society is studied in Ziauddin Sardar’s Postmodernism and the Other, London/Chicago/Illinois: Pluto Press, 1998.

[3] See several articles in Communique, Hong Kong: ARENA, 1993, Nos 19 & 20, November 1993, for a study of communal politics arising from the Babri incident.

[4] This is a view that has been well expressed by Leonard Swindler in “The Age of Global Dialogue,” Prajna Vihara, Bangkok: Assumption University, The Journal of Philosophy and Religion, Vol. no. 2 July-December 2001.

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