Decades on from George Bush’s War on Terror, the battle between liberal democracy and Islamic fundamentalism continues to rage. Whilst one is a political system, and the other an extreme form of religious ideology, is it possible that both are manifestations of the same innate human need to believe in a higher power? US anthropologist Scott Atran contends that a resolute belief in democracy is merely a modern version of our need to have faith.
“To prevent the destruction of human democracy we are willing to destroy ourselves and the world,” says Atran. “All of the ideologies that have been successful since the French Revolution, that have carried people, have been salvational, secularised religious ideologies. That is, each contains the idea that we can save humanity and we have the right message.”
These ideologies of salvation will go to extraordinary lengths to protect and justify themselves. Atran points to the development of the atomic bomb by way of example. “The people I knew who fought in the Second World War, like my father, who saved western Europe, at the same time these were the people who were prepared to blow the world up for pointlessness.”
“In order to prevent ourselves from being so threatened again, they developed a policy that would have, if executed, destroyed the world. They built weapons of mass destruction, the likes of which the world had never seen and which, if used, would end civilisation as we know it. For what reason? It is a product of the western tradition of liberal democracy and human rights. To prevent the destruction of human democracy we are willing to destroy ourselves and the world.”
Join the conversation