"Enlightenment philosophers were deeply troubled by the question: How do societies manage to exist? How does a disparate group of individuals, each locked in his or her own private world of feelings, intentions, and desires, ever manage to come together into a functioning and stable collective? How do individuals even manage to communicate with one another, to share their thoughts and concerns? What are the forces that hold societies together?"
In the context of a polarized fragmented contemporary Bangladeshi society, I think the problems go much much deeper than mere passing of laws or ammending the Constitution regarding Secularism/Religionism/Church-State separation etc. We have been discussing this for a long long time, and in the mean time the "BeeshBrikkho" of division, disunity, fragmentation, delusion, delirium, paranoia, national schizophrenia, conflict, chaos, fanaticism, violence, aggression, stupendous economic disparity (and consequent evils), has matured and bearing fruit in a dysfunctional society.
We seem to have lost our basic sense of a 'shared humanity and reality' ! Just survey all the multifarious epileptic responses (from groups, classes, parties, individuals) to the recent BDR tragedy, in an impartial unemotional sane humane manner, and this should be quite evident.
The BDR incident was unquestionably tragic, but can you - are you able to - imagine how infinitely more tragic is our response to it has been ?
Just one example: the day the massacre inside the compound became public, I noticed a suppresed glee in the eyes of many working class people here (not to mention the overheard comments), instead of horror! This was no less shocking and potentially infinitely more disastrous, than the political squabbling and other reactions. This has now become almost all-pervasive. Educated-uneducated, rich-poor alike. The richer or more literate ones are behaving no better, albeit their motivations and aspirations are different and divergent.
Following is a sereis of excerpts taken from an article I found extremely illuminating and relevant to our situation. The original article is very long, so I am quoting relevant chunks of it (these chunks may seem a bit disconnected on first glance, but they are not):--
" 1. Enlightenment philosophers were deeply troubled by the question: How do societies manage to exist? How does a disparate group of individuals, each locked in his or her own private world of feelings, intentions, and desires, ever manage to come together into a functioning and stable collective? How do individuals even manage to communicate with one another, to share their thoughts and concerns? What are the forces that hold societies together?
2.Up until recently, different groups and nations could believe, appropriately enough, that they were each in their own boat and need only be concerned about their own survival. But what happens when everyone is in the same lifeboat and the seas are getting rough? Any serious conflicts will likely topple the boat and all will perish. In this new context what are the best ways to deal with the threats posed by greater interdependency? Can traditional coercive measures ‘maintain international peace and security’? What is needed now is a new psychology that is commensurate with the realities of political interdependency. For when diverse populations share the same lifeboat, it is essential that they relate to and communicate with one another; but for joint problem-solving to occur, the various parties involved must have a shared enough sense of reality and humanity. A shared sense of humanity and reality, the prerequisites to any sort of problem-solving, however, can not be taken for granted simply because all the parties are human beings, communicate with each other directly or through translators, and appear to use reason. A shared sense of humanity and reality is a complex personal and social process that, at present, has only been achieved to a limited degree.
3. The basic principle of the psychology of interdependency is that a shared sense of reality and humanity emerges, not from our genes, or from hard-wired processes of reflection, abstraction, and generalization, but rather, from a series of formative developmental experiences that create the framework for a shared sense of humanity and reality, as well as reflective problem solving. It is through these formative experiences that individuals both share a common sense of reality and humanity, and share the infinite variation in human experience and behavior…
4. They are embedded in formative learning experiences that characterize vital components of culture that allow for both the commonality and variation in human behavior.
5. These culturally-mediated, formative, learning experiences are often implicit (Greenspan, 1997) . This notion of implicit processes or of an implicit psychology is reminiscent of what Emil Durkheim referred to at the end of the 19th century as ‘social facts’: représentations in the âme collective or conscience collective (‘collective mind’). That is, values, customs, beliefs, etc., that may exist outside the conscious awareness of the individual members of the society but nonetheless have concrete effects on their behavior. For example, we may not be conscious of the rules proscribing how to dress, or the distance one should maintain in varying social contexts, but we nonetheless scrupulously follow these rules. So too, by an ‘implicit psychology’ we are talking about fundamental principles that we tacitly use to form values and beliefs and to make sense of and interpret the behavior of others and ourselves. Implicit processes and the implicit psychology that emerges from the, therefore, in part determine our most basic assumptions and ways of interpreting the world
6. Individuals, in order to be part of a family group, community group, nation group, and global (human) group, however, require more than external guidance. They require enough of a sense of shared reality and humanity to coalesce around these different levels of social organization. Social organizations that embrace diversity and are broad and stable are not based on shared myths or shared histories. Certainly not in the narrow and traditionally described cultural sense. Rather, the coming together is around shared processes that construct a complex reality and a complex view of humanity that shares implicit rules for the group’s survival. An example of the application of such implicit rules is the formation of derivative institutional processes that are larger than any one specific belief (for example, those that support justice).
7.What are the “common†experiences that can support these implicit processes and their derivative institutions? These experiences are the ones that determine how we engage in and define human relationships, express and comprehend intentions, and implicitly negotiate the basic themes of survival, such as safety and danger, respect and humiliation. They are also the ones that determine the degree to which we can symbolize, reflect on, and create institutions to deal with our own and others’ intentions, beliefs, and values to sustain a shared sense of humanity and reality. How can we characterize these experiences at the collective level ?
8. For example, some societies struggle with the basics of regulating behavior and forming a cohesive group; others work on collective self-reflection that generates values and institutions to deal with basic needs, integrate different beliefs, and flexibly grow with emerging challenges
9. In this model, the more reflective and the greater the breadth of mastery of the group, the greater the adaptability and stability of the group.
10. some groups or societies cohere at levels of development that depend on concrete, polarized images and rigid, inflexible rules. In these groups, concrete ideas govern relatively unreflective actions. Other groups cohere at developmental levels where the practices and institutions can integrate different perspectives that involve subtlety, nuance, and the ability for change and growth through collective self-reflection. Here, more intricate processes guide decision-making as well as manage conflict and change.
11. For bonds of connectedness to endure among the increasingly varied kinds of ‘hyphenated’ citizens, a people must experience and maintain a sense of commonality broader than ever before in the human experience.
12. Covert affective communications define the shared assumptions a society uses to meet its basic needs, such as security and dependency, control of aggression, power, sexuality, and the like. These tacit or implicit processes underlie more overt symbols and are a significant component of a group’s character. They begin their impact in the early years of life in the way that a society or group, through its family practices, communicates with its young and deals with basic themes such as safety versus danger, security versus fear, acceptance versus rejection, approval versus disapproval, humiliation versus pride and respect, power and assertiveness versus helplessness, sexuality and respect for the body versus shame and embarrassment.
These covert processes, which are imbedded in group procedures dealing with basic needs, as well as in the content of emerging symbols (beliefs), can lead to varying degrees of adaptive or maladaptive organization at various levels of integration. For example, some groups employ the mechanism of splitting emotional polarities when confronted with intense affects. Rather than seeing another group as sometimes good and sometimes bad, and having an integrated perspective which unites the parts into a whole, there is a tendency to split experience into one or another dimension (believing at that moment that only one dimension exists). Such splitting can justify enormous hostility when another group is characterized as all evil. Groups that tend to maintain nurturing and dependency in the face of intense affects (such as anger, fear and humiliation) facilitate more integrative organizations. Other aspects of the collective character that are formed and maintained by covert processes include the degree of individual or group rigidity, the tendency to project intentions onto others, the tendency for rapid unpredictable shifts in attitudes rather than stable perspectives, and the tendency towards impulsive action rather than delay and caution.
13. If a group has a large number of words or symbolic images for representing and discussing an area of experience, clearly it can deal more precisely, and possibly more reflectively, with that array of feelings than a society able to avail itself of only a few roughly differentiated symbols.
14. That is, at a basic level we see groups that cohere around some superficial trait, like skin color or language; at a more advanced level the group might cohere around some polarized belief system; and a still more advanced structure develops institutions that encourage highly reflective and abstract thought processes.
15. Becoming emotionally invested in abstract concepts, such as equality, justice, and democracy, can be more challenging than being emotionally invested in polarized beliefs (we are better than them) or surface physical traits. Only individuals who have evolved through the capacities described above can channel emotions to animate the abstract ideals of their society and the structures that embody them. Social cohesion results from what Thomas Jefferson referred to as the “consent of the governed.†It is a product of the affects widely held within a group rather than of compulsion and regimentation.
16. The oversimplification of issues has the deleterious effect of weakening internal institutions. If leaders give the public pat answers and polarized choices that do not represent the full complexities of challenges, they undermine both people’s confidence and their ability to think reflectively about world affairs. When political leaders use the mass media to feed the public misleading information â€" a danger exemplified during the McCarthy period in the 1950s â€" the collective loses the capacity to make careful distinctions in its national discourse. Current polling techniques exacerbate this situation. After public figures have framed issues in a polarized way, pollsters conduct surveys to determine which positions are popular. Leaders then justify their policies and actions by referring to public opinion polls that were initially shaped by their own misinformation. A cycle of escalating misinformation and polarization replaces informed debate
17. The capacity for individuals to organize into groups that cohere at flexible, reflective (rather than polarized) concrete levels is part of a long evolutionary process. While Darwinian images of the survival-of-the-fittest are often associated with this evolutionary process, the mental abilities that enable relationships, empathy, cooperation, and understanding emerge only from nurturing relationships in caring families. It is the nurturing side of relationships that enable human beings to form, maintain, and work together in families, communities, and societies. Working together in these groups makes it possible to rear reflective children and create complex economies, militaries, and governments. In the modern world only such cohesive groups founded on formative developmental processes that are characterized by nurturing relationships will have the potential to cope with the world’s growing interdependency.
18. This delicate pattern of relationships and learning in each generation is a chain that can easily be disrupted by factors that interfere with caregiver-child relationships, families, or communities. Many such factors ranging from war, famine, poverty, and illness to changing childcare patterns are operating today. Moreover, to strengthen these formative cultural patterns that make social groups possible in order to accommodate growing interdependency will take considerable investments in a new type of “human capital.â€
19. Obviously, each of these departures from reflective thinking at the group or individual level can occur in varying degrees. Even though this developmental framework on the levels of thinking in groups and/or individuals is relatively new (Greenspan, 1997) , most of these, less-than-reflective approaches, are somewhat familiar to any student of politics or international relations. What’s often not clear to students of group behavior, however, is the degree to which the level of reflective thinking or the departure from reflective thinking is an indication, not just of the intellectual processes used by the individual or group, but their emotional processes. Reflective thinking requires, as indicated, well developed forms of empathy (being able to project oneself into another’s shoes and understand a wide range of feelings and views without distorting them), coupled with the ability for being realistic and having a firm assessment of reality. The ability to hold on to reality in the face of complex circumstances and to be able to balance realistic appraisals with empathetic understanding is a complex emotional and intellectual task. It is especially difficult for groups and individuals to carry out this task under extreme stress and/or strong emotions. Well done, however, such thinking processes harness our emotional and intellectual capacities in a seamless, integrated manner.
20. Like our sense of humanity, our sense of reality depends on sharing sufficient formative experiences so that we can use similar principles of logic and reflection to reason about our world. We’re talking here, not about similar beliefs or agreement on religion, economics, or politics. Rather, we’re talking about a similar enough way of reasoning so that we share a framework for being logical and, therefore, for constructing a sense of reality about our world. Surprisingly, our sense of reality, which most of us take for granted, depends on the relative mastery of the developmental capacities of social groups and individuals described earlier. These developmental capacities, in turn, depend on the availability of certain types of formative experiences.
22. In order to increase the constructive elements, we must deal with not only economic and political forces, but also psychological ones. "
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Regards,
R.A.
--- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, Farida Majid <farida_majid@...> wrote:
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> Committed to PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO KNOW
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> Friday, March 27, 2009 03:15 PM GMT+06:00
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> Published On: 2009-03-18
> Point Counterpoint
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> Redefining secularism
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> Md. Anwarul Kabir
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> Secularism is not negation of religion. Photo: Munir Uz Zaman/ Drik News Establishing secularism was one of the principles of our Liberation War. After liberation, the 1972 constitution incorporated secularism as one of its salient features. However, post-1975 politics changed the situation and we reverted to the realm of communalism.
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> The reasons behind this U-turn are manifold. Yet, one may argue that, as the term secularism was not defined objectively, communal forces could misguide the people with a view to promoting their own political agenda.
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> The apparent debacle of communal forces in the last election does not negate the possibility of their revival in future. To annihilate communal forces, secular democrats must redefine "secularism."
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> There is no universal notion of secularism. The rationalist and atheist notion suggests that religion and secularism are rigidly incompatible as secularism is a non-religious, if not altogether anti-religious, philosophy. So, in framing state policy, a secular state should not care about the religious beliefs or practices of the citizens.
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> In extreme cases, a secular state can debar the citizens from practising their religious obligations. The communist blocs established this notion of secularism.
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> The western liberal notion of secularism suggests that there is no contradiction between religion and secularism. Rather, it concentrates on the separation of the church and the state. This model suggests that the state should remain independent of the church and that the church has no role in framing state policies. However, the church can still play a significant role in the private sphere of life.
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> In Bangladesh, the communal forces have misguided the people by defining secularism in line with the rationalist and atheist notion. Thus, the majority of the people perceive secularism as an anti-religious ideology, and those who are religion oriented naturally don't endorse secularism.
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> Is the western notion applicable to our country? To answer this, we need to assess the influence of religion on state affairs from an historical perspective.
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> Throughout Europe, the church had played a role in framing and regulating state policies till the 18th century, when everything was determined in accordance with the biblical doctrine. In a real sense, the countries in Europe then were theocratic by nature.
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> Due to the development of natural science, rise of the Renaissance Humanists and the Enlightenment, the supreme authority of the church collapsed gradually and, ultimately, church and state were completely separated during the 17th and 18th centuries.
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> Martin Luther, the founder of Protestantism, initiated the first step of the separation of state and church by introducing the doctrine of two kingdoms (secular and spiritual) of God. Like Europe, America also had a similar experience; separation of the state and religion was endorsed in 1791 through the first amendment to the constitution.
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> But the case of the Indian subcontinent was completely different. Before the Moghul Empire, most of India was ruled by Hindu kings. As Hinduism covers different varieties of indigenous religious beliefs, the ancient Hindu kings showed religious tolerance and ran the state in a secular manner.
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> The Moghul emperors, except Aurangzeb, continued to conduct state affairs in secular mode and they never tried to establish theocratic Islamic state. The tenure of Emperor Akbar was noted for his secular practices in running the kingdom. By combining the essence of all major religions, he introduced Din-e-Elahi with a view to upholding the philosophy of secularism.
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> Din-e-Elahi can be viewed as an effort to establish Indian style secularism, which did not negate religions. Rather this nurtured all religious doctrines, allowing peaceful co-existence of their followers.
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> After independence, Jawaharlal Nehru, realising the very essence of secularism, framed the constitution. So, it is unsurprising that in India the state promotes religions and religious activities. For instance, it sanctions huge funds for religious institutions and education.
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> However, such state funded institutions must not discriminate against any citizen for his/her religious belief. So, in the state funded Muslim madrasas, not only Muslims but also people of other religions can study without any religious prejudice.
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> Now the question is; what mode of secularism should Bangladesh follow? As the majority of the citizens are not orthodox but religious, we must discard the rationalist and atheist notion. Again, the influence of religions is so immense that it is not possible to separate state from religion. So, the western notion will also fail to serve our purpose. In fact, Bangladesh has to define its own brand of secularism, considering the fact that the majority people of the country are Muslims and Bengali.
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> Bangladesh consists of other religious communities along with some indigenous ethnic minorities. So, in defining secularism we must consider Bangladesh as a pluralist society in both the religious and the cultural aspects.
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> Our secularism may be close to that of India's, but it must originate from our own soil. Though the majority of the people are Muslims, historically they have been upholding and practising Bengali culture without any confrontation with Islam. The reason is the way Islam is preached in this region.
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> Many people who converted to Islam in the erstwhile East Bengal were from the lower strata of Hindu community, and were inspired by the Peers/Aowalias who followed Sufism, which is contrary to the orthodox view of Islam. Sufism emphasised a spiritual union with God and did not require its adherents to abandon their traditional beliefs and practices totally.
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> The influence of indigenous Bengali culture is evident in the Muslim community in Bangladesh. The majority of the Muslims have a liberal outlook and traditionally believe in peaceful coexistence with other religious communities. So, implementing secularism in Bangladesh is relatively easier compared with other Muslim countries.
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> Perhaps, while defining secularism in the 1972 constitution, Bangabandhu had a crystal clear conception of secularism of the land. To him, secularism did not mean discarding religion. Rather, he was eager to promote all religions and bring religious harmony in the country.
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> During his tenure, recitations from all major scriptures at the opening of any state function can be cited. Besides, he was keen to maintain good ties with other Muslim majority countries and joined the OIC. His decision to form the Islamic Foundation and patronise major Hindu/Buddhist festivals was in line with our brand of secularism.
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> Md. Anwarul Kabir is an educationalist and a freelance writer. E-mail: kabiranwar@...
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