Political Theology and Liberal Democratic Theory: An Essay on Seyla Benhabib’s Account of Political Theology

The intersection of the religious and the secular represents a significant topic in the fields of political science, critical theory and religious studies. Indeed, it is a salient topic because it problematizes the neat binary distinction between these categories. The challenge of political theology to liberal democracy, for example, presents a central theoretical issue to this binary opposition. I argue that because liberal democratic theory is founded on the basis of public justification, and a kind of state neutrality wherein the state operates within the space of both instrumental and substantive reason, political theology presents a fundamental challenge to the normative democratic ideals which often draw sharp distinctions between religious (private) and secular (public) spheres of life. In this paper, I discuss how political theology presents a kind of departure from the liberal-democratic principles which form the common framework in which many western countries use to negotiate these categories.
Seyla Benhabib’s article “The Return of Political Theology,” is a highly important piece that addresses this topic in deeply intelligent and thought-provoking ways. How does Benhabib frame the concept of political theology? In what ways does this present a ‘challenge’ to liberal democratic principles? For Benhabib, in order to address the concept of political theology in relation to liberal democracy it is necessary to discuss the broader political context wherein these ideas converge. Benhabib begins the article with a reference to Samuel Huntington’s thesis on the “clash of civilizations”. For Benhabib, Huntington’s thesis sets the tone for thinking about the contemporary intellectual environment as it ‘comes-to-terms’ with the dualistic forces of political Islam and western liberal democratic states.  As Benhabib writes,
Increasingly in today’s world we are experiencing intensifying antagonisms around religious and ethnic-cultural differences. Since 11 September 2001 the vocabulary of the ‘clash of civilizations’ (Huntington) of the 1980s has given way to what is called a ‘global civil war’ between the forces of political Islam and western liberal democracies. The confrontation between political Islam and the so-called ‘West’ has replaced the rhetoric of the Cold War against communism.
As Benhabib reflects on this situation, it becomes clear how these antagonisms have been filtered into the public sphere in various ways:
Unfortunately, this rhetoric is not restricted only to the destructive foreign policies of the Bush administration and American neo-conservatives. Since the bombings in Madrid (2004) and London (2007), the Danish caricature controversy over the representations of the Prophet Muhammad (2005), the murder of Theo Van Gogh in the Netherlands by a Moroccan militant (2004), and the French Scarf Affair (1989-2004), the confrontation between the so-called forces of ‘political Islam’ and western liberal democracies has come to dominate European discourse and politics as well.
Of course, Benhabib’s analysis indicates how these situations have contributed to the perceived threat of political Islam in the Western world, which signals the return of “political theology”.
As Benhabib notes, in order to think more clearly about these social, political, cultural and religious tensions it is important to discuss these issues in the context of the secularization hypothesis advanced in the early twentieth century by the early critics of religion, including Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Weber, among others.  According to the thesis developed in Max Weber’s essay ‘Wissenschaft als Beruf’ (1919), the categories of the religious and the secular represent fundamental ways of thinking about the modern world, especially as a period in human history that is characterized by Entzauberung or disenchantment’, as “the loss of magic in the everyday world and the rationalized differentiation (Ausdifferenzierung) from one another of the spheres of science, religion, law, aesthetics and philosophy.”  However, because of the fluid and shifting social, political, cultural and religious landscapes of the modern world, Weber’s thesis of the process of modernization is complicated by a wide-range of sociological factors.
As Benhabib notes, the combination of a variety of aspects of globalization, including the rise of religious fundamentalism, and “reverse globalization” (what I understand to be the opposite effect of colonialism, and the greater movement of culture across traditionally recognized cultural barriers), presents tremendous challenges to the secularization hypothesis, especially in relation to how the intersection of the categories of the secular and religious challenge the “separation between religion and politics, between theological truths and political certitudes.”  From this perspective, the imagined borders that separate the spheres of social, political, religious and cultural life described in Weber’s essay represent porous sites of political contestation. Benhabib draws on several examples to illustrate how the categories of the religious and the secular have been re-inscribed with meaning and subject to the creative dynamics of religious tension and cross-cultural interaction.
 Of course, one of the ways of thinking about the role of religion in these political processes is through the conceptual lens of ‘political theology’. The concept of political theology that Benhabib uses to discuss these dialectical movements of culture is a concept that forms a variety of different interpretations. However, here there are two usages of the terms: one way of thinking about the concept of political theology refers to the use of the term by the German political theorist Carl Schmitt. It can be argued that Schmitt’s ideas take the form of a polemic towards modern liberal democracies. Schmitt argues that the state of exception, an extreme state where the very survival of the state is threatened, represents the very limits of liberal democratic states, proving that in reality these states operate on the basis of state sovereignty. It is theological precisely in the way that the state transcends the limits of its own laws and boundaries when it is confronted by the exception. However, for Benhabib, Schmitt’s version of political theology is problematic and does not seem to provide an accurate account of the way in which we encounter political theology in our world today.  According to Benhabib, citing Hent de Vries, in our globalized world, religious movements act as deterritorialized body politics.  As Benhabib states, “in the global age, deterritorialized religions not only challenge the authority of the nation-state but dislodge national senses of collective identity as well.”  In this global context, the second notion of political theology is important because it paints a picture of the conditions for the restructuring of the private and public spheres, as religious communities, groups and individuals become more politically active and aware of their political identities in shifting political, cultural and social circumstances.
In conclusion,  I have traced Benhabib’s writing here to discuss the ‘return of political theology’ as a complex topic that presents a variety of different conceptual facets of modernity. Overall, what is presented in this paper points towards the flexible and fluid nature of liberal democratic societies as they enter into a new global age of community and individual involvement, especially in terms of political activities and identity politics. This has shifted the conversation beyond traditional notions of political theology, and has focused attention on the way in which religious groups represent politically engaged communities that continue to present a variety of challenges towards the liberal-democratic states.

Work Cited
Benhabib, Seyla, Alessandro Ferrara, Volker Kaul, and David Rasmussen. “The Return of
Political Theology: The Scarf Affair in Comparative Constitutional Perspective in France,
Germany and Turkey.” Philosophy & Social Criticism 36, no. 3-4 (March 2010): 451–471.
 

A Yoga of Becoming: Towards an Understanding of Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga

The philosophical and spiritual teachings of Sri Aurobindo Ghose (d.1950) are some of the most influential teachings in the modern yoga tradition. Sri Aurobindo is a highly influential figure, and his legacy has impacted many people throughout the world as they aim for greater spiritual truth and understanding. The central aim of this paper is to discuss and contextualize the teachings of Sri Aurobindo in order to explore his core spiritual and philosophical beliefs and practices. In this context, it is important to think about how Sri Aurobindo’s personal experience informs the thought and practice of his distinct yoga practice, integral yoga. In what ways do Sri Aurobindo’s experience of yoga inform his theory and practice of integral yoga? I argue that although Sri Aurobindo’s integral yoga focuses on solitary and individual yogic practice, the higher aim of Sri Aurobindo’s yoga practice is to transform both individual and collective life into a higher form of consciousness, which necessarily moves beyond the individual and affects the whole of creation. However, for Sri Aurobindo, it is necessary to begin with the individual, in order to integrate consciousness and create the conditions for greater spiritual growth and transformation. For the purposes of this paper, I will focus on two primary texts highlighting Sri Aurobindo’s thought and practice: The Synthesis of Yoga, as well as a number of passages from “Stories from Jail Life,”. I will begin by briefly sketching the biographical background of Sri Aurobindo’s life.

Sri Aurobindo was born in 1872 in Calcutta  during the British colonial occupation of India. At a young age, Sri Aurobindo left India to move to England, where he spent the duration of his childhood. Throughout this time, Sri Aurobindo received a formal education and was taught how to read and write in a number of Romance languages, including Latin, French, German and Italian. Sri Aurobindo later attended King’s College at Cambridge University “where he had earned a First Class in the Classical Tripos (honours examination)” (Heehs 69). As Banerji states, “this education prepared him as a modern subject, who had internalized the post-enlightenment values of social critique and creative freedom” (95). Indeed, Sri Aurobindo’s education in England had a significant impact on his approach to social, economic and political issues in India, as well as his overall outlook and approach to yoga, especially in terms of thinking about yoga in a way that synthesized traditional
and modern perspectives connected to yogic practice (Banerji 95).

Upon his return to India, Sri Aurobindo “joined the service of the Maharaja of Baroda”, in what is now present-day Gujarat. As Banerji notes, “at this time he took up serious study of two texts that were to last him until the end of his life, the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita. He also began reading the books of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda.” These two texts were essential for the development of Sri Aurobindo’s personal and spiritual life. As Banerji states,
The Upanishads introduced to him the proto-philosophical complexity of the Vedanta, particularly its concern for embodied freedom and delight (jivanmukti); while the Gita gave him the active doctrine of spiritual works and its revolutionary nature; as also a theistic and more integral spirituality, involving surrender to, and identity with, the Personal Divine. (Banerji 96)

Throughout Sri Aurobindo’s corpus of written material it is clear that his perspective of the yoga tradition had been profoundly shaped by the spiritual and philosophical insights of the Upanishads and the Gita. For Sri Aurobindo, these texts provided an important framework that helped him to develop his theory of the evolution and transformation of individual and social consciousness. Therefore, it is important to note that although Sri Aurobindo’s understanding and approach towards integral yoga is often framed in a way that might be described as distinctly modern, it is nonetheless rooted in and shares continuity with the ancient philosophical yoga traditions that emerged in the Indus Valley region.

Throughout this latter period of spiritual development, Sri Aurobindo began to cultivate personal relationships with a number of yoga practitioners, including Swami Brahmananda, a renowned disciple of Sri Ramakrishna. Sri Aurobindo would often visit sacred sites and participate in regional religious and spiritual practices (Banerji 96). During this time, Sri Aurobindo started to practice the ancient yogic breathing technique of pranayama that was “taught by a friend who was a disciple of Brahmananda and close to the circle of hatha yogis surrounding Brahmananda” (Banerji 96). Sri Aurobindo also began to incorporate asanas (postures) into his spiritual exercises.

For Sri Aurobindo, this period of spiritual discernment and development created the conditions for his own greater self-awareness and self-perception. One particularly important spiritual experience occurred at the temple of Kali in Chandod near the Narmada river in western India, where Sri Aurobindo had an encounter with the “World Mother”. As a symbol for India’s goddess traditions, the “World Mother” would become a salient motif in Sri Aurobindo’s spirituality (Banerji 96). Sri Aurobindo’s poem, “The Stone Goddess,” represents a poetic description of this experience:

In a town of gods, housed in a little shrine,
From sculptured limbs the Godhead looked at me, —
A living presence deathless and divine,
A form that harboured all infinity.
The great world mother and her mighty will
Inhabited the earth’s abysmal sleep,
Voiceless, omnipotent, inscrutable,
Mute in the desert and the sky and deep. (Banerji 96)

According to Banerji, “the poem records a moment with darshan, which indeed, is also a moment of identity with Kali” (darshan which is a Sanskrit term describing Indian spiritual metaphysics) (96). For Sri Aurobindo, the symbolic relationship between Kali and Krishna, both the feminine and masculine divine archetypes, represent an integral aspect of his understanding of the yoga tradition, as a tradition that involves a harmonious union between feminine and masculine energies as aspects of ultimate reality (Brahman).  

During his time in Baroda, Sri Aurobindo was also politically active and often involved in Indian nationalist politics. In this context, Sri Aurobindo spent time “in the company of Maharashtrian revolutionaries like Bal Gangadhara Tilak and his associates”, and advocated for poorna swaraj or “unconditional independence based on the right of a people with its own cultural history to have independent expression and self-determination” (96). In the context of the swadeshi movement, which called “for a boycott of British goods and their replacement with indigenous manufacture”, there “rose a call for national education and Sri Aurobindo was offered the post of principle of the proposed national college by its primary patron” (Banerji 96). Sri Aurobindo accepted this offer and moved to Calcutta to teach at the “college and to pioneer and engage himself fully in the anticolonial resistance movement” (Banerji 96). It is clear that Sri Aurobindo’s life at this point was firmly committed to the Indian liberation movement, which had significant consequences for the trajectory of his spiritual life.  

In the context of the Indian nationalist movement, there were strong regional forms of yoga which drew on the traditions of Tantra and Vaishnavism (Banerji 97). As Banerji states, “Shakti Tantra practices around the worship of the mother Kali and Bahkti traditions based on love for Krishna and amplified by Sri Chaitanya in the 16th century, were very alive in Bengal and available for mobilization in the freedom movement” (97). According to Banerji, the mythic symbolism of these traditions and practices translated into the secular mythos of India as the “Mother”, which formed a significant spiritual aspect of the liberation movement that was prominent among Indian nationalists during the early years of the 20th century (97). Another fascinating spiritual aspect of nationalist politics concerns the use of the Gita to encourage a kind of selflessness and self-sacrificial attitude towards the liberation movement, as nationalists protested British colonial power structures and self-sacrificed for an independent India (Banerji 97). For Sri Aurobindo, who was actively participating in these movements, this engagement with yoga as a form of political dissent, in a “process of popular identity formation,” created the necessary conditions for the next stage of his personal spiritual development, moving beyond the more narrow regional approach that was evident in the Indian nationalist movements towards a more transcendental and universalistic approach to yoga (Banerji 97).

Therefore, it seems that Sri Aurobindo’s early life, like many of his contemporaries during the revolutionary period of Indian nationalistic politics, is characterized by the escalating violence and political turbulence of India at the beginning of the twentieth century. Indeed, this period is distinguished by a variety of changes to the social, cultural, political and economic environment of modern India. Moreover, this part of Sri Aurobindo’s life was highly impacted by this time of political instability. Furthermore, it represents what I believe to be an important point in this discussion: that both religious and spiritual life is conditioned by the political dimensions of human existence, and that these aspects of life cannot easily be separated from the political because they are deeply intertwined and mutually shaped. In this case, the dialectical transition between traditional modes of life in India and the colonial expansion of the modern west represents an important historical context in the spiritual and philosophical evolution of Sri Aurobindo’s thought and practice. It is in this context that I approach the topic of Sri Aurobindo’s “integral yoga”, as a particular way of approaching the yoga tradition that appears to synthesize ancient philosophical teachings with the language of the modern west. Indeed, as I have mentioned, it is a philosophy that moves far beyond the narrow confines of nationalist identity and class differences, but moves towards what might be described as a transcendental paradigm of human enlightenment.        

In 1908, three years after the partition of Bengal, Sri Aurobindo was accused of conspiracy, allegedly becoming involved in the bombing of the local magistrate and the “killing of two English ladies” (Banerji 100). In 1909, Sri Aurobindo spent one year in a confined and solitary prison cell in Alipore Jail in Calcutta. These were crucial moments in Sri Aurobindo’s life, as he found himself increasingly drawn to the spiritual life during the time that he spent in prison. As Sri Aurobindo wrote, “I have spoken of a year's imprisonment. It would have been more appropriate to speak of a year's living in an ashram or a hermitage. The only result of the wrath of the British Government was that I found God”. Indeed, this time spent in prison seems to have led to a spiritual renewal and an increased awareness of the Divine. However, despite the positive sentiments described above, these were also very testing and difficult times, as Sri Aurobindo had to deal with the mentally and physically exhausting effects of isolation and solitary confinement.

Throughout this time, Sri Aurobindo felt as though God was testing him, giving him “necessary lessons” about his life’s purpose. The first lesson was a realization of the injustice of the Indian prison system, as Sri Aurobindo believed God was calling him towards action, in order to aid his countrymen and reform the prison system, “so that these hellish remnants of an alien order were not perpetuated in a self-determining India”. The second lesson pointed towards the need to develop a greater awareness of the yogic path, that “for the one who seeks the yogic state crowd and solitude would mean the same”. The third lesson that Sri Aurobindo describes reveals a deeper spiritual truth, a theme that is found in the Bhagavad Gita: that all of our efforts to still the mind and retain a degree of “mental poise” are best accomplished through the simple act of surrendering to the imperishable self (17). As Sri Aurobindo wrote:

A spirit of faith and reverence (shraddha) and complete self-surrender (atma-samarpana) were the road to attain self-perfection in the yoga, and whatever power or realization the Lord would give out of His benignity, to accept and utilize these should be the only aim of my yogic endeavour.

Furthermore, there are several moments in these passages where it is clear that Sri Aurobindo describes his interior strength as being derived from a transcendental place of consciousness, beyond that of his own. According to Sri Aurobindo, through the “power of prayer” God gave him the gift of strength to endure through this experience of extreme solitude, so that “the suffering seemed as fragile as water drops on a lotus leaf”. Throughout all of these experiences it seems that Sri Aurobindo’s time in prison represents a momentous turning point in his spiritual life, one that provided the yogi with the spiritual strength to persevere through his sentence and to arrive at a clearer picture of his life’s purpose and vision.  

In 1910, after Sri Aurobindo was released from prison, the yogi moved from Calcutta to Pondicherry, a coastal French colony in southeast India. According to Heehs, at this point Sri Aurobindo “abandoned politics” and began to focus more on cultivating his personal yoga practice (66). Sri Aurobindo spent the remainder of his life in Pondicherry where he built an ashram (which as Heehs notes, the Sanskrit asrama translates into hermitage) to facilitate a communal and solitary practice of yoga. Many people began to be attracted to Sri Aurobindo and his teachings, and he started to develop a loyal group of followers. Among these individuals, one in particular stood out, Mirra Alfasa, a French woman of Sephardic Jewish descent from a wealthy middle-class family (Heehs 66).

In 1920, upon moving to Pondicherry, Alfasa, who had previous experiences with occult spirituality, was drawn to Sri Aurobindo, who had begun to regard Alfasa as his “spiritual equal”, speaking of her as “the Mother” (Heehs 66). In Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo and Alfasa developed a lifelong friendship, and their spiritual relationship would become a vital aspect of Sri Aurobindo’s philosophical teachings, which required surrender to the “Mother” which I believe is symbolic for the importance of goddess spirituality in Sri Aurobindo’s teachings.
In any case, according to Heehs, Sri Aurobindo felt that it was important to practice yoga in “solitude”, thereby giving Alfasa responsibility over the ashram and the community of followers (Heehs 66). As Sri Aurobindo’s followers grew, it was clear that a new religious movement was emerging around the ashram, as the community grew to as many as 1,500 dedicated followers, and over 3,500 local people who participated in the activities of the ashram (Heehs 67). Unfortunately, however, Sri Aurobindo’s ashram would become a source of political tension, as one “fundamentalist” group claiming to represent Sri Aurobindo began to follow their own political, legal and financial agendas, attempting to file unsuccessful lawsuits and prosecute members of the ashram community and its trust board (Heehs 67). As Heehs points out, this was clearly not what Sri Aurobindo had in mind when he constructed the ashram for his community of yoga practitioners (67).

It seems that there is certain irony to this narrative, especially because Sri Aurobindo believed that yoga was a deeply personal and individual practice. As Heehs states, Sri Aurobindo “made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with any sort of movement” (66). Furthermore, as Sri Aurobindo wrote, yoga “has to be done in each individual, otherwise it cannot be done in the collective at all”, and that “yoga was a ‘way to be opened that is still blocked, not a religion to be founded” (Heehs 67). Despite Sri Aurobindo’s reluctance to be the leader of any sort of new religious movement, a growing community of followers began to take root, spreading Sri Aurobindo’s philosophical teachings across the world. In what follows, I will turn to the particular teachings of Sri Aurobindo in order to arrive at a clearer picture of his teachings on integral yoga.                    

What exactly is integral yoga? In what ways do we find continuity with the ancient yoga tradition of the Indus Valley Region in the teachings of Sri Aurobindo? And how do they diverge? According to Chaudhuri, Sri Aurobindo’s purna yoga, or integral yoga, promotes the integration of human consciousness through the concept of the Supermind which transforms individual, social and collective life, bringing it into a greater spiritual and philosophical awareness of Being (7). Indeed, this is an important point, because while Sri Aurobindo’s thought might be interpreted as isolationistic, this further perpetuates the misleading modern perspective that misinterprets the classical yoga tradition, especially the work of Patanjali in The Yoga Sutras, as a solitary, isolationistic, world-denying and exclusive practice based on a kind of dualism that appears to distinguish a fundamental disjunction between purusa (consciousness) and prakrti (nature) (Whicher 133).
On the contrary, it seems to reflect the opposite approach, especially as a practice that works through the individual, affecting the collective or community through which the individual takes its place. According to Heehs, the transformation of individual and collective life is made possible through the establishment of the Supermind, a concept that denotes an advancement of consciousness in terms of humanity’s stage of spiritual development (69). Moreover, this was Sri Aurobindo’s reason for the ashram, “a place where new forms of individual and collective life could be tried and perfected” (Heehs 69).  

According to Sri Aurobindo, in his classic work The Synthesis of Yoga, the author highlights the fundamental aspects of integral yoga, which are represented in the text as a kind of synthesis of a variety of different forms of yoga, including hatha yoga (psycho-physical), raja yoga (mental and psychic), jnana yoga (knowledge), bahkti yoga (devotional) and tantric yoga (610). Moreover, each of these yogic techniques represent different stepping stones along the path of liberation. As Sri Aurobindo states, “all aim in their own way at a union or entity of the human soul with the supreme Spirit” (610). From this it follows that because of the unity that is inherent among the different yogic paths it is possible to practice a synthetic yoga that incorporates different aspects of the various types of yogas listed above. However, in order to affect the transformation of personal consciousness, it is necessary to surrender oneself to the workings of a greater universal consciousness. As I have discussed, this indeed appears to be a fundamental principle of integral yoga, as Sri Aurobindo writes:

The principle in view is self-surrender, a giving up of the human being into the being, consciousness, power, delight of the Divine, a union or communion at all the points of meeting in the soul of man, the mental being, by which the Divine himself, directly and without veil master and possessor of the instrument, shall by the light of his presence and guidance perfect the human being in all the forces of the Nature for a divine living. (613)    
Therefore, in order to understand the idea of integral yoga, it is important to note the fundamental principle of surrender which enables the perfection of the soul and the establishment of Supermind which transforms personal and collective life.

As I have discussed, Sri Aurobindo’s approach to yoga is greatly informed by the broader philosophical tradition of yoga, which encompasses a variety of approaches in the traditional yoga texts including the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. It is clear that Sri Aurobindo is very familiar with these texts, and has conducted exhaustive and  detailed studies in order to extract and interpret the deeper meanings of these texts. Moreover, his perspective of them presents a careful understanding of the ideas and spiritual insights contained in these texts. It is precisely due to this wide range of textual and philosophical influences that Sri Aurobindo’s integral yoga describes a synthesis of the yoga tradition, which describes a spectrum of ways of arriving at spiritual truth and divine consciousness.

According to Sri Aurobindo, his teaching “starts from that of the ancient sages of India that behind the appearance of the universe there is the Reality of a Being and Consciousness, a Self of all things, one and eternal. All beings are united in that One Self and Spirit but divided by a certain separativity of consciousness, an ignorance of their true Self and Reality in the mind, life and body” (177). Moreover, according to Chaudhuri, in the above statement lies one of Sri Aurobindo’s most important contributions to philosophy: that “Being is the indivisible unity of existence and energy (Brahman and sakti)” (8). As Chaudhuri states, Sri Aurobindo’s “metaphysical-spiritual” and philosophical scheme consists of classical Indian terminology wherein the yogi interprets Being as “the ultimate ground of the universe, as the Supreme Person (Purusottama) or the Supreme Being (Parabrahman) endowed with infinite creative energy” (77). For Sri Aurobindo it seems that although all beings are connected to the universal grounds of Being, the issue arises when individuals become divided, and begin to associate themselves with a false or constructed sense of themselves. As Sri Aurobindo describes, in order to see beyond the veil of ignorance it is necessary to engage with the practice of yoga, which aims towards the liberation of the self, and ultimate union with the Divine.

 One important aspect of this idea that is worth noting is that there is a sense that the evolution of consciousness is already at work in nature, and that the human mind becomes a secondary facet for the evolutionary process. From this perspective, it seems that the role of human beings in attaining a higher evolutionary nature is ultimately dependent on the human will, intention and action. From this it follows that it is crucial to surrender to the evolutionary workings of consciousness and to the Divine life. In order to enable this process, it is necessary to remove the “veil of separative consciousness” to “become aware of the true Self, the Divinity within us all” (Sri Aurobindo 177). Overall, I think that the idea of “separative consciousness” is a significant concept in Sri Aurobindo’s thought. What I have described as the veil of ignorance is directly connected to the perception of a separate self, which forms the fundamental conditions for the illusion of “being” in the world. According to Sri Aurobindo, our attachment to this separate self hinders our ability to attain divine perfection (616). Of course, yoga presents a profoundly effective way of relinquishing this attachment. However, it becomes clear that this is a difficult, long and complex process in the life of the practitioner and requires daily commitment. Furthermore, it presents itself as hard, but very sustainable and fulfilling work.

From this point of view, Sri Aurobindo’s teachings share a deep level of continuity with the ancient philosophical tradition of classical yoga. According to the classical definition of yoga by Patanjali, yoga is “the cessation (nirodha) of [the misidentification with] the modifications (vrtti) of the mind (citta)” (Whicher 134). Although Sri Aurobindo’s way of framing the idea of separate consciousness is presented in a different language than that of Patanjali, the core problem of a separate self is relayed in Sri Aurobindo’s thought, and plays a central role in his theory of integral yoga. And of course, this another important aspect of Sri Aurobindo’s philosophical perspective, that once the veil has been removed, and human beings begin to see themselves as part of a greater whole, the individual and collective transformation of society will have been affected leading to transcendence. In what follows, I will discuss another aspect of the discussion that I believe is important, the use of modernist language to describe  the path of yoga.

One of the main differences in the way in which Sri Aurobindo’s thought has developed concerns the use of modern language to describe his theory of yoga. One might argue that Sri Aurobindo’s use of language to think about his teachings is couched in scientific terms, as he often refers to the expansion of consciousness as an evolutionary process that emerges through the progression of human experience (Sri Aurobindo 177). In this sense, it could be argued that Sri Aurobindo often takes a more modern scientific approach to yoga, especially in the sense that throughout his work he evaluates knowledge based on the faculties of reason and logic (Stinson 152). However, while it is clear that Sri Aurobindo places an emphasis on both reason and logic to arrive at truth, it seems as though the combined factors of experience and intuition play a more important role in the process of self-realization and awakening. As I have discussed, Sri Aurobindo’s use of language is highly contextual, and relates to both his upbringing in England and his university education at Cambridge.
Of course, the way Sri Aurobindo frames his teachings also depends on the particular audience he is addressing. As Banerji notes, for example, the use of language in the revised edition of The Life Divine, in a chapter entitled “The Triple Transformation,” was written for the French cultural milieu, many of whom, such as Mira Alfasa and Satprem, were being introduced to Sri Aurobindo’s writings by the 1920’s. In the aforementioned book, we find the conceptual terminology that Sri Aurobindo uses to describe his theory of integral yoga, including the use of the terms, “the psychic being, Overmind and Supermind” (Banerji 40). It is interesting to note that Banerji, as a scholar of Sri Aurobindo, finds resemblances with Sri Aurobindo’s conceptual writing and the writing of modern French and German philosophers, such as Gilles Deleuze and Gilbert Simondon (45). Indeed, there are also more obvious similarities between Sri Aurobindo’s concept of the Overmind with Nietzsche’s “Ubermensch” (45). And of course, there are many similarities with the way in which Sri Aurobindo discusses the emanation of spirit as part of a greater evolution of human consciousness with that of Hegel’s theory of the movement of world spirit. Nevertheless, this speaks to the adaptability and fluidity of yoga, as it has the capacity to cross cultural and linguistic boundaries and to connect with different theories and ideas about the fundamental aspects of human nature, being and purpose.

How do we measure Sri Aurobindo’s legacy and impact on culture? While it is beyond the scope of this paper to reflect on this question in its entirety, it seems that Sri Aurobindo’s legacy had a profound impact on many contemporary thinkers who have incorporated the yogi’s thought into their work, especially in the field of transpersonal psychology (Miovic 199). Furthermore, it is clear that Sri Aurobindo’s teachings have impacted many people throughout the world, and his thought has been interpreted and used in a variety of ways in different social, cultural, political and religious contexts. In this paper I have briefly discussed and contextualized Sri Aurobindo’s teachings, focusing on his life’s trajectory, and how his later years as a spiritual and seemingly apolitical figure need to be contextualized into the shifting cultural, social and political landscapes of modern India. However, due to the wide range of material I have only just skimmed the surface of a deep ocean of intellectual and philosophical insights. Overall, I think that the combination of metaphysical, spiritual and social philosophy in the teachings of Sri Aurobindo presents a highly important take on the yoga tradition, as a tradition that often encourages social responsibility in order to further the greater good of the human condition. I think that for further research it would be very interesting to reflect on the role of Mirra Alfassa in the life of Sri Aurobindo, and to further contemplate and perhaps trace the history of the community at the ashram in Pondicherry.

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Racism, South Africa and Logocentrism

South Africa:
Religion, Race and Colonialism in
a Shifting Dialectic of Binary Opposites


The colonial legacy of apartheid in South Africa left a deep imprint on the history of human rights and social justice. Moreover, the wound of apartheid on the people of South Africa is profoundly shaped by this legacy of historical violence. While it is beginning to show signs of healing, the multiple scars of apartheid show their roots in the depths of the trauma recounted in the aftermath of post-apartheid South Africa. In order to understand this trauma it is important to listen, and reflect on what is being said. After all, it seems, as Freud proved, speaking, and therefore writing, is the first point of departure in the healing of the internal psychic fracture of a deeply embedded wound. While a discussion of the traumatic events of apartheid appears to be an overwhelming task, it is at least important to situate the context of the events of the trauma. Therefore, in order to investigate the remains of a legacy that has so deeply impacted the people of South Africa, it is therefore integral to contextualize, to give notes to, and ultimately try to present an understanding of the significance of these remains, even if this discussion is limited in scope.  
In this paper, I am particularly interested in discussing the historical and colonial developments of the categories of religion and race in the context of South Africa. I am especially concerned with its implications in the post-apartheid era. This presents a case study in order to begin thinking about the relationship between these categories in a way that demonstrates how they represent critical issues for the study of religion. The thesis developed throughout this paper is that while the categories of religion and race in the context of South Africa are constructed within the broader history of colonialism, the reconstruction of these categories in various ways, especially in ways that challenge the processes of colonialism and imperialism, represents a movement towards the dismantlement of the binary oppositions that have structured these categories in the colonial and post-colonial experience. However, even within the context of South Africa, which is often considered to be a bastion of hope and multiculturalism (Tamarkin 148), it appears that the relationship between race and religion remains an area of deep political and religious contestation (Tamarkin 163). As Tamarkin’s study of South African multiculturalism points towards, this is especially the  case of the Lemba people, a group of “black Jews” on the margins of South African society, who have been working towards their recognition as a politically distinct community (163). Hence, I believe that it is important to highlight how the relationship between colonialism and apartheid reflects the variety of religious, social, cultural and political challenges to identity in a shifting and changing post-colonial context. I will begin with a discussion of method and theory in the study of religion, and then move to a reflection on Jacques Derrida’s essay, “Racism’s Last Word,” that reflects on the relationship between the categories of religion and race, in order to show that both of these categories are deeply intertwined and constructed in the social, cultural and political realities of South Africa.    
The relationship between the categories of race and religion presents a critical perspective to the development of theory and method in the field of religious studies (Lynch 284). According to Lynch, these categories are understood as socially constructed in the sense that they are “imposed and adopted by others” (284). Contemporary academics have often noted that, for example, in the past, the way in which scholars of religion approached religious difference often led to the imposition of a Christian framework in order to understand the religious perspective of the Other (Lynch 285). From a social constructivist point of view, this example is problematic because it presents the study of religion as a form of cross-cultural encounter that privileges the scholar of religion over the object of study in a hierarchical and often colonial way. Furthermore, the Christian understanding of religion in particular is considered to be an ineffective approach for conducting research (Lynch 284). Moreover, in the past, as evident in various colonial policies and political regimes, this has resulted in the implementation of racial and political categories to examine and effectively control the religion of the Other, especially as it is interpreted in terms of its difference from Christianity (Byrne 7). The implications of the effects of colonialism, imperialism and ethnocentrism challenges the notion in the study of religion that “religion” presents a unique category of intellectual analysis (sui generis). Indeed, religion is often a highly politically charged category, and is frequently enmeshed in a wide range of social, cultural, political, economic and environmental issues. Therefore, in order to think about the complexity of the categories of race and religion, I think it is useful to think about the way in which these categories have been constructed and used to create the conditions for colonial, racial and structural violence. I argue that this is highly important for the study of religion, as it connects to some of the most important issues of our times.
Social constructivism presents one example of a theoretical approach to the study of religion that effectively engages with these categories in a critical light. According to Lynch, social constructivism is a recent approach to theory and method in religion, and therefore represents an emerging area of academic inquiry (284). Moreover, the approach of social constructivism has contributed a significant framework for conducting research in religious studies (284). However, as Lynch states, while the idea of religion as a socially constructed category has contributed “new and important approaches to the study of religion, the precise nature of social construction is often underdeveloped” (285). As Lynch argues, academic research on the social construction of gender and race, in particular, provide “an opportunity to continue to develop critiques of the category of religion” (285). This perspective presents a well established theoretical framework, and conveys an important way of thinking about the intersectionality of the categories of race, gender, identity, religion and culture (Lynch 285, Haslanger 112).
According to Lynch, for Haslanger, whose theory on racial categories presents an important critique for the study of religion, social constructivism perceives social constructs not only as mental phenomena but also material, “actualized, embodied and imposed” (287). Indeed, the social construction of the categories of religion and race are implicated in a diversity of forms, both material and psychological, that condition and construct the perimeters of lived experience (Lynch 289). Moreover, the plurality of contexts that create racial and religious difference provides a significant point of reference for thinking about how people construct and frame their experiences, especially as they think about their lives in the contexts of religion and society (Bramadat 315-316). I use this example of social constructivism to point out the fact that the study of race presents a highly significant topic in the broader study religion, especially for thinking about the development of theory and method in the field of religious studies.
Of course, one thinker whose work perhaps might be considered in the context of social constructivism is Jacques Derrida, whose foundational methodological approach of deconstruction represents what I believe to be an absolutely necessary and pivotal stepping stone on the road towards developing a meaningful and clear approach to conducting research in the study of religion. Derrida’s legacy of thought often demonstrates how the history of philosophy was constructed and framed in a peculiar and particular way. In the history of the Western Enlightenment tradition, for instance, philosophy is often thought to be conveyed in terms of its neutrality towards the study of metaphysical reality (Derrida 6). Derrida, a philosopher who’s academic work is frequently located on the margins of scholarship, approaches the question of philosophy in an open and deliberate way in order to address the deeper questions of our time. In terms of my own understanding, Derrida has left a profound impact on the way I think about the study of religion, and reality in general, especially in terms of opening up topics to critical inquiry, not in the sense of attacking the subject matter, but rather, opening up the material to different possibilities of interpretation.    
Derrida’s essay, “Racism’s Last Word” is a brief but powerful reflection on the social, cultural, religious and political legacy of apartheid in South Africa. As a form of structural racism, apartheid represents a political system of racial segregation and cultural exclusion based on a colonial legacy of violence and state domination. The overarching goal of apartheid in South Africa was to effectively segregate the variety of multi-ethnic identities of South Africans, in order to prevent “non-whites” from affecting and attaining citizenship (Tamarkin 149). In this short essay, Derrida discusses apartheid in reference to an art exhibition hosted by the association of Artists of the World Against Apartheid in South Africa. The Exhibition brought together the work of a diverse group of artists in order to reflect on the social situation of South Africa under apartheid, and to envision the possibility of South Africa free at last from the oppressive yoke of the apartheid regime. The Exhibition began in Paris, and travelled across the world to convey the complexity and brutality of the apartheid regime to a global audience.
The Exhibition was the inspiration for “Racism’s Last Word”, and presented an artistic reflection on the future of racism in our world. As Pergnon-Ernest and Suara write, “the collection offered here will form the basis of a future museum against apartheid…The day will come—and our efforts are joined to those of the international community aiming to hasten the day’s arrival—when the museum thus constituted will be presented as a gift to the first free and democratic government of South Africa to be elected by universal suffrage” (“Art Against Apartheid Collection). The Exhibit was presented to Nelson Mandela, and is now a part of the general archives on apartheid in South Africa. The Exhibition represents the hopes of many; the inevitability of a future without apartheid. For Derrida, the artistic representation of the end of apartheid presents itself as the anticipation of a “memory in advance” (377). As Derrida writes, “that perhaps, is the time given for this Exhibition. At once urgent and untimely, it exposes itself to and takes a chance with time, it wagers and affirms beyond the wager” (377). While Derrida’s essay is a reflection on the optimism expressed by those who foresaw the impending demise of apartheid, he also focuses his essay on the “remains” of apartheid, which as I will discuss, persist to this day in often complex and surprising ways.      
Derrida’s essay presents a critical philosophical analysis of the end of apartheid in South Africa. Although apartheid officially ended in the 1990’s, by the 1980’s apartheid was beginning to decline and the institutional powers of the state of Pretoria were beginning to diminish. At the time of the Exhibition apartheid was nearing an end. It is in this context that Derrida focuses this essay on the notion of apartheid as a memory. As Derrida writes, “apartheid — may that remain the name from now on, the unique appellation for the ultimate racism in the world, the last of many” (377). Indeed, for Derrida, apartheid represents the “worst” of a systemic and totalized form of racial violence and state oppression. For Derrida, apartheid is “racism’s last word” because it signifies the last remaining ideological system wherein the political power of the state instituted racial segregation as a fundamental category of legal and political control. Moreover, the institutionalization of racism in South African society created the conditions for a highly repressive and oppressive form of state power. The social development of South African society revolved around the mobilization of racial categories to enforce the cultural hegemony of  the white minority settler population. In what ways is this analysis connected to the broader critique of logocentrism? Moreover, what are the remains of the social, cultural, political and religious racism of the apartheid system in South African society?
Indeed, what I find to be particularly interesting in Derrida’s essay is the role of religion in apartheid. Derrida discusses this in the middle of the essay, when he turns to the particular issues of South African administration and the establishment of the segregation laws during this period. As Derrida writes:
It is not enough to invent the prohibitions and to enrich everyday the most repressive legal apparatus in the world: in a breathless frenzy of obsessive juridical activity, two hundred laws and amendments were enacted during this period in twenty years (Prohibition of Mixed Marriage Act, 1949; Immorality Amendment Act [against interracial sexual relations]; Group Areas Act, Population Registry Act, 1950; Reservation of Separate Amenities [segregation in movie houses, post offices, swimming pools, on beaches, and so forth]; Motor Carrier Transportation Amendment Act, Extension of University Education Act [separate universities], 1955; segregation in athletic competition has already been widely publicized (383).
It is clear that from this passage that the creation of these laws effectively transformed the social and cultural boundaries of South African society into an official and formal system of segregation regulating every aspect of life. However, as Derrida notes, the social and cultural enforcement of these laws has roots in a particular religious understanding of the role of the state in the political formulation of the law (384). Derrida’s discusses this in terms of “theo-political”, ie, the emergence of state sovereignty based on an understanding of the state in relation to divine power (383).
According to Derrida, the merging of the theological with the political is reflected in the creation of the laws of segregation in South Africa, which as Derrida discusses are grounded in a particularly Calvinist understanding of God’s sovereignty as absolute power. As Derrida writes, “this law is also founded in a theology and these acts in scripture. For political power proceeds from God. It therefore remains indivisible” (383). In the context of the law under apartheid, there is a sense that God’s will is represented in a political way through the administration of the law, designating power and authority to the “Boers”, as God’s chosen people (which, as Derrida states, presents another form of anti-semitism, wherein the Jews are rejected precisely because there can only be one chosen people) (384). Therefore, it is important to note that the structural form of racism in South Africa was fundamentally shaped by the intersection of political and religious power structures, especially those instituted by the Dutch Reform Church and the National Party. Moreover, this is reflected in the institutionalization of Christianity as the state religion.
Therefore, religion played a major role in the justification and legitimization of apartheid. However, while Derrida focuses on the negative role of religion, he is also aware of how religion had an important role in the resistance of apartheid. As Derrida writes, “among the domestic contradictions thus exported, maintained, and capitalized upon by Europe, there remains one that is not just any one among others: apartheid is upheld, to be sure, but also condemned in the name of Christ” (384). Derrida lists a number of organizations involved in the condemnation of apartheid in the name of religion: “the white resistance movement in South Africa should be saluted. The Christian Institute, created after the Sharpeville massacre in 1961, considers apartheid to be incompatible with the evangelical message, and it publicly supports the banned black political movements” (384). Indeed, the dimensions of religious resistance to the systematic abuses of apartheid span throughout a number of diverse religious traditions, including Islamic liberation theology, as well as Gandhian style satiyagraha (truth-grasping). In the context of these passages Derrida shows that the role of religion is never just “one role”, but in reality represents a plurality of “roles”, as well as a diversity of voices.
Therefore, while the religious ideology of South Africa was implicated in the structural racism of apartheid, religion was also a significant vehicle for the social, cultural and political resistance of apartheid. The construction of religion in these contexts reflects a shifting dialectic of cultural politics and identity. How does one begin to unpack such a matter in order to arrive at a clearer understanding of the processes that produced this complexity? In what follows I intend to trace the legacy of apartheid in South Africa, focusing specifically on the role of religion in South Africa during this period. I aim to accomplish three central tasks: to think about the role of religion in the administration of apartheid; to highlight the ways in which religion was used by the state to support the laws and policies of apartheid; to examine the activities of resistance among religious groups and organizations towards the state. I use these questions to reflect on the remains of the legacy of apartheid in post-apartheid South Africa, especially in terms of the shifting categorical constructions of religion and race.
Why is the question of religion important for the study of apartheid and structural racism in South Africa? What is the role of religion in creating the conditions for the institutionalization of racial segregation in South Africa? How has this effected the place of religion in contemporary South African society? I suggest that in the various historical and contemporary contexts of South Africa, religion often functions in terms of a dialectical relationship, simultaneously as a force for oppression and racial segregation (as in the apartheid administration), but also as a way beyond these binary oppositions. In the post-apartheid period this is characterized by the social democratic movement towards liberation, change and multiculturalism in South Africa. However, the way in which the South African government structured its particular understanding of multiculturalism in the post-apartheid period reflects a phonocentric multicultural discourse that privileges multilingualism as the basis for group recognition and identity (Tamarkin 149). As I will discuss, this is particularly the case among the Lemba people, a complex group of ethnically Indigenous, and religiously Jewish, people who have been trying to gain recognition as a distinct community by the South African government, in order to attain a degree of self-determination in the South African democratic process.
The history of apartheid in South Africa reflects a dynamic and complex social, political, cultural and religious environment. To understand the history of apartheid in South Africa it is important to highlight the colonial history of the British and Dutch colonies in the region, which created the conditions for the institutionalized racism in the apartheid regime. Indeed, while the period of apartheid differs from the colonial period of administration (before the South African government declared its independence), it nonetheless shares a high degree of continuity based on how the development of race relations proceeded from colonial times. However, in order to think about the role of colonialism in the implementation of apartheid, it is crucial to discuss how the concept of colonialism itself represents a logocentric development in the history of Western thought.
 Throughout Derrida’s corpus of writing, the themes of colonialism, language, culture and identity are omnipresent. For Derrida, an Algerian Jew, who directly experienced the assimilating effects of colonialism in French Algeria, colonialism left a profound psychological scar on his memory of his years in Algeria, which were marked with a legacy of colonial violence, especially in the context of Crimieux Decree which effectively formed an anti-Semitic policy removing Jewish citizenship from the French Democratic Republic. Derrida’s personal relationship with colonialism represents a crucial perspective on the topic. According to Ahluwalia’s reading of Derrida, in a way colonialism is a product of Logocentrism (329). For Derrida, the category of logocentrism represents the fundamental logic of binary oppositions (“Positions” 35). It seems that this logic structures a hierarchical coding of power relations underlying a particular vision of metaphysical reality (Derrida 36). For Derrida, this is implicated in the philosophical construction of the central ideas of Western Metaphysics, which as Derrida argues throughout much of his work, are essentially violent. Indeed, for Derrida, the violence of logocentric thought is not only a symbolic form of violence, but also creates the conditions for empirical and actual violence (Elmore 35). As McDonald notes, Derrida discusses the centrality of binary logic in Western Metaphysics in terms of logocentrism (83). Indeed, logocentrism is the idea that the philosophical framework of European thought is rooted in the philosophical category of the Logos.
According to McDonald’s reading of Derrida, the Logos represents a transcendental signifier for the existence of truth as a primary and originary source of knowledge (84). According to McDonald, as a concept however, it privileges a particular narrative of origin, and eclipses the possibility of a plurality of ways of knowing, being and seeing in the world. From a logocentric point of view, for instance, only the rational mind is capable of retaining validity (88). One pertinent example of this process reflects the philosophical assumption of the Cartesian cogito (“I”) which verifies empirical truth based on mental impressions of subjective reality (as indicated in Descartes mind/body dichotomy, privileging the mind as the ultimate source of human knowledge). It seems as though, as a disembodied state of mental activity, Western philosophical thought represents the dialectical processes involved in the circulation, movement and emergence of ideas. However, within this context, it has often privileged the dominance of European, and particularly masculine ways of thinking (in Derrida’s thought this is framed as “phallocentrism”). This is evident in the misogynistic, anti-Semitic, racist and colonial ways of thinking that characterized the development of Western philosophy.
In this context, it is important to note how the notions of difference, alterity and otherness, as concepts that are interpreted outside of the Western philosophical frame are generally perceived to be in opposition to Western philosophy. According to McCance, for Hegel, for example, the social history of humanity proceeds on the basis of Spirit, which progresses through the various forms of society throughout history beginning in the East, taking its highest cultural form in the West (47-48). Indeed, Hegel often frames the East as the binary opposite of the West, and thus functions as its dialectical Other (McCance 47-48). It seems the validity and authenticity of Western knowledge is dependent on the logic of binary oppositions, and thus forms the ideological basis for its legitimization. The logic of binary oppositions in the history of Western metaphysics often takes the form of a “violent hierarchy”, wherein the construction of philosophical concepts depends on the imposition of a power dynamic which privileges a certain kind of knowledge. As Derrida reminds us in “Positions”, “we are not dealing with the peaceful coexistence of a vis-à-vis, but with a violent hierarchy. One of the two terms controls the other (axiologically, logically etc.) holds the superior position” (36). One particularly important example of this violent hierarchy in Derrida’s thought concerns phonocentrism. As McDonald states, phonocentric thought, which is grounded in the logocentric discourse of Western metaphysics, privileges the voice over writing as a phonetic instrument in the production of knowledge (84). In the Western philosophical canon, the spoken word is framed in a way that precedes the written word on the basis that it is a higher and more profound concept. From this perspective, the spoken word is closer to the fundamental Idea sparked in the human mind. The written word represents the projection of the spoken word, but also its mediation, again acting as its dialectical Other. From this perspective, the spoken word is a more authentic authentic form of human cognition that is ultimately closer to the true presence of the Self. In Derrida’s work the significance of this idea in the history of philosophy can be traced back to the foundational canonical thinkers of the Western philosophical tradition from Plato and Aristotle, to Descartes, Rousseau, Kant and Hegel (85). In what way is colonialism rooted in a phonocentric, and thus logocentric discourse?
  Colonialism is a process of political control that I argue is deeply rooted in the logic of logocentrism. While I must try to avoid reducing colonialism to an essentialist category, I believe that it consists of this primary tension, especially as it concerns the identification of  one culture as superior to another. Indeed, the superiority of a certain culture and language over another, and the imposition of its superiority upon the culture of another, is what constitutes colonialism on a deeper level beyond merely the material and economic conquest of the colonizer upon the colonized. It reveals a whole chain of assumptions about the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized (in itself a binary opposition predicated on a violent hierarchy of oppositional logic). According to Ahluwalia, colonialism figures as the “displacement” of culture, in a way that creates an origin, a centre and a state of social and political awareness, fabricated on a fictional account of colonial power politics (330). In Ahluwalia’s reading of Derrida, the philosophical assumption of a “centre”, presents a paradox that is: a centre without a centre, the centre outside of the centre (330). I suppose what Ahluwalia’s reading of Derrida shows is that the centre is actually a binary opposition that is constantly under erasure, that the centre is inherently unstable and subject to fluctuation. In a way, like other logocentric concepts, the idea of colonialism is precarious because it creates a fictional reality, of a centralized power structure, in order to sustain itself as a legitimate social, cultural, political and economic force.  
 It appears that the dominance of the colonial power structure is often presented as the most “originary” and “true” form of culture, whereas the colonized peoples are often stripped of their cultural languages (or at least the way in which they code their language), and made to feel culturally inadequate (in the sense that language of the colonized is presented as the “official” and “superior” form of intellectual and cultural cognition). Indeed, as I discuss in the following pages, the hierarchy of the colonial project in South Africa is predicated upon this perception of Indigenous people as highly inferior to the colonizer. Indeed, as I discussed in reference to Derrida in “Racism’s Last Word,” the language of the colonizer was often the language of religion, which constructed a certain set of religious beliefs which were implicitly racialized during the time of Dutch and the British colonization of South Africa, and explicitly put into practice during the colonial laws and policies of the apartheid administration. In effect, the processes and stages of colonization presented itself as a dialectical operation of the violent hierarchy between the colonizer and the colonized. In the realities of post-apartheid South Africa, the presentation of colonial culture as an originary form of political governance is in reality a fiction under constant erasure. As previously discussed, I think that for Derrida, logocentrism creates the conditions for violence and the material representation of a certain narrative of “truth” which is expressed in the form of binary opposites. This critique is deeply implicated in the context of colonial South Africa.      
In this paper, I work under the premise that the colonial period in South Africa is characterized by the binary construction of racial oppositions. While this might be obvious, it is important to point out, because it shows how the deeply symbolic violence of colonialism was projected on the Indigenous peoples of South Africa in very real ways. The presence of colonial power in South Africa manifested itself during the period of European exploration in the sixteenth century, as the first Portuguese explorers travelled along the coasts of South Africa in order to seek a trade route to India. While the Portuguese claimed parts of South Africa as their own, the arrival of Dutch colonists on South African soil firmly established Dutch colonial power in South Africa. The first Dutch colony of South Africa, which eventually became modern day Cape Town, was founded by the Dutch navigator Jan Van Riebeeck in 1652. The establishment of this colony ensured the Dutch foothold as the principal colonial power in South Africa. Dutch relations with the Indigenous peoples of South Africa (traditionally referred to in the older literature by the racial terminology of the Hottentot and Bushmen, but now replaced with much more accurate name “Khoisan” which refers to the broader Indigenous population of South Africa), were often marked by “mistrust and suspicion”. As the Dutch colony in South Africa started to increase their control over the majority of the South African coastline, the expansion of Dutch power over South Africa required a significant increase in the agricultural labour force in order to ensure the economic development of the Dutch colonies. Throughout the colonial period, slavery provided the means for economic growth and development. However, the introduction of slavery in South Africa also represented a major challenge to settler colonialism, in the sense that the overwhelming “black” population created a deep insecurity in the “white” settler minority population. Indeed, at the outset of the colonization of South African society, there was a profound anxiety among the white settlers of “being overrun or engulfed” by “black” people. These anxieties persisted throughout much of the history of the colonial establishment in South Africa, and is deeply embedded in the racial policies and laws enforced during apartheid. Furthermore, in contrast to the majority of South Africans, the white population remained a small minority. From this perspective, in order to maintain the strength and cultural dominance of Dutch culture, it was necessary to address the perceived threat of their minority status in a way that monopolized the cultural capital in the hands of the settlers. Therefore, from the perspective of the Dutch colonists, it seems that segregation acted as an important way of distinguishing and strengthening their social and cultural identity, and hence, the cultural dominance of “white” South Africa before and during apartheid.
What is the role of religion in the colonial project of the Dutch settlements in South Africa? In what ways did religion maintain and reinforce the dominant cultural expression of the minority white colonial population? As Derrida discusses in “Racism’s Last Word”, the Dutch colony in South Africa had a strong Calvinist identity which created the conditions for the racial segregation in South African society. This appears to be affirmed in the historical record of the Christian churches in South Africa. According to Tiryakian, the majority of colonists were members of the Dutch Reformed Church (385). Indeed, while the Dutch Reformed Church had a considerable role in creating the theological justifications for the apartheid regime, it also presented a significant marker of in-group identity (Tiryakian 385). Therefore, for the majority of Dutch Europeans in the new colonies of South Africa, religion appears to have been a major source of colonial and cultural identity.
The arrival of the French Huguenots in 1688, only contributed to the strength of the particular strand of Calvinist Protestantism in Dutch South Africa, however both of these groups varied in particular Calvinist interpretations of scripture (Tiryakian 386). For the Huguenots, as well as the Dutch settlers, there was a considerable amount of freedom to practice their faith, given that protestants were heavily persecuted throughout Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. However, as Tiryakian notes, the way in which the early colonists approached their particular understanding of Calvinistic theology did not limit the involvement of “black” people in church life (387). On the contrary, in the early period of colonization the Christian churches were more inclusive in their involvement of “black” people, especially in terms of their missionary activities. Citing the work of Ben Marais (who is regarded as one of the first members of the Dutch ecclesiastical community to speak out against apartheid), Tiryakian states, “through the 18th century there were no colour-lines in the Dutch reform church, the sole distinction was between Christian and non-Christian, between baptized and non-baptized” (388). However, while it is quite likely that there were “colour lines” at this point in time, the implicit connection here is that the development of racial segregation slowly advanced from a more informal mode of segregation between Europeans and Indigenous South Africans, to a more deliberate, intense and codified method of cultural separation and displacement.
Therefore, it seems that while the earlier period of colonization in South Africa seems to have represented a more inclusive approach the involvement of black people in different aspects of society, including missionary activity, wherein the missionary activity of the white colonists extended religious participation to Indigenous South Africans, the existence of a more formal system of segregation developed within the shifting context of Dutch settler migration. With the arrival of the British in 1820, the Dutch colonial government eventually lost control, and the political power of South Africa was ceded to the British colonial administration. Nevertheless, it appears that throughout the colonial period, South Africa represented a politically contested space of social and cultural control.
Another important part of this story concerns the history of the Afrikaners (the traditional name for the Boers, the Dutch speaking people of South Africa in the period of colonization). The transfer of political power from the Dutch to the British had a significant impact on the Dutch Boer people, especially in the sense of alienating the Boers from their ancestral homeland in Northern Europe (Tiryakian 388). This shift in the political landscape of South Africa forced the Dutch settlers to develop a new cultural identity as a people of the colonial frontier on the ‘edge of civilization’. Furthermore, the imposition of British power led to the great migration of the Dutch Boers throughout the Transvaal, Orange River and Natal regions of South Africa (Tiryakian 388). In terms of the religious significance of this migration, the Boers felt a deep affinity with the Israelites of the Old Testament. Using a particular Calvinist interpretation of the doctrine of predestination, the Boers believed that God had chosen them to build the kingdom of heaven on earth. According to both Derrida and Tiryakian, the Boers, suffering from the trial of exile in the frontier, and facing a host of hostilities, (including the British on one side, and the “Bantu invaders” on the other of their new settlements), perceived themselves to be God’s chosen people (Tiryakian 389-390). As Tiryakian states, for this reason, the Boers favoured the Old Testament over the New Testament, often using the language of the Old Testament as a justification for their harsh treatment of their “black” neighbours, as well as to define themselves as a particular cultural community in the midst of a changing and shifting world. As Tiryakian argues, the particular interpretations of scripture in the Old Testament, and the use of these religious ideas to legitimate the initial discrimination of whites from “people of colour”, in part created the conditions for the development of a nationalist ideology among Afrikaners (Tiryakian 391).  
In any case, the subsequent period of the Dutch legacy in the colonization of South Africa is often framed in terms of the pioneering spirit of the Boar people in an unknown and hostile frontier. In this way, the experience of colonization in South Africa reflects similar developments in the colonization of North America, especially in the context of the missionary activities of colonial authorities towards Indigenous peoples. However, the main point in this section of the essay is that the particular history of the Dutch people in South Africa, and the emergence of their religious ideas in the “frontier” regions of colonial South Africa, developed in a way that greatly affected the institutionalization of apartheid.  
The reorganization of South African society from a colonial system of governance under British rule ultimately led to the implementation of nationalist South African governance under the leadership of the National Party. In 1948, the National Party of South Africa began to introduce a pro-apartheid platform, which advocated racial discrimination against “people of colours”. During that time, there was already a great diversity of people living throughout South Africa, including the local Indigenous populations, Indians, Muslims, Jews, and great number of Europeans from a variety of different countries. However, it seems that the increase of multiculturalism only created tensions in the social and cultural development South Africa. Indeed, multiculturalism and racism were perceived to be a religious and therefore spiritual threat to the very unity and survival of white Afrikaaner South African society. This point is made quite well in the rhetoric of an official statement made by the Dutch Reformed Church which states,
It is the conviction of the majority of Afrikaans speaking South Africans and the members of the DRC that the only way of ensuring survival of the nation is by preserving the principles of racial separation. Racial integration on an extended scale, on the other hand, must result in the lowering of standards, culturally, morally and spiritually (Masuku 153).
Indeed, the opposition towards integration is deeply entrenched in the National Party’s platforms, which effectively sought to create a closed off system of  national citizenship and democracy in South Africa to block “people of colour” and others to participate in the electoral system. At a time when most of the Western world, especially after World War II, was quite aware of the atrocities and cultural genocide of the Nazi regime, it seems from a contemporary point of view, rather startling that such policies and laws could be allowed to be adopted into a formal legal system shortly after the liberation of Europe from the grip of the Nazi regime. However, it is precisely for this reason that Derrida highlights the assertion that apartheid constitutes the most institutionalized form of racism, and therefore the last, at a time when it seems that most of the Western world was deeply against the enactment of such laws. In any case, in what follows I will discuss how the role of religious organizations worked towards justice from within the South African political landscape. Citing the scholarship of the South African legal scholar Harold Wolpe, Tempelhoff writes:
Apartheid unfolded in three stages. The first from 1948-1960 was notable for the decline in structural conditions of mass struggle. The second (1960-1972) saw state repression gathering momentum in an attempt to ‘put down’ the armed struggle. The third phase, as of 1973, Wolpe describes as a time of insurrection, coinciding with a liberation struggle that increasingly forced the apartheid state into defence mode—and led to its ultimate demise (192).  
How was race constructed throughout the stages of this process? What is the role of religion in the processes of repression, struggle and liberation in South African society?
As Derrida discusses in “Racism’s Last Word”, while the Christian churches in South Africa were often complicit in reinforcing  state laws and policies in order to create the conditions for the segregation of “blacks” and “coloured people” from “whites”, a narrow focus on the negative role of religion tends to overshadow the whole story (Derrida 384). Indeed, there is a considerable amount of scholarship that contends that South African churches also presented a challenge to the power structures of the state, and represented a significant form of resistance to State power. As a source of resistance in the state of apartheid, religion plays a complex but significant role in facilitating anti-apartheid developments. According to Kuperus, the role of the Christian Churches during apartheid have “played a critical role” in both the apartheid and post-apartheid eras (Kuperus 278). As Kuperus states, while Christian Churches have often contributed support to the laws and policies of the apartheid era, they have often been the site of criticism, “nation-building”, such as their efforts in Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as well as “civic education efforts” (278).
Moreover, as Masuku suggests, the role of religion in apartheid is not simply a clear cut distinction between those who supported apartheid and those who did not, but rather the reactions to apartheid provoked a multiplicity of different voices in response to the (in)justices of racial segregation (152). As Masuku suggests, “apartheid triggered different reactions in various sections of the South African society, including faith communities. De Gruchy referring to Christian communities writes, ‘some regard racial separation as scriptural, some as blatantly unscriptural, and other as pragmatically necessary but not ideal’” (151).  Within this multiplicity of religious and political actors, it is important to note that while the majority of white Christian Protestant Churches played a major role in support of the state policies of the National Party, there was a minority of actors from within these Churches who questioned the laws of state, and were outspoken towards the injustices of apartheid (Masuku 153). From another perspective, throughout the broader nexus of South African society, religion often represented a multiethnic political platform where people could voice and raise their concerns of the racial and social injustices of working class and poor people in South Africa. In some cases, this was represented through the arts, as another study points to theatre as a form of Indigenous resistance through storytelling. In other cases, the resistance to apartheid was conducted in non-violent ways, as with Gandhi’s form of peaceful political protest of satyagraha (truth-grasping). In addition to this, there is a substantial amount of research on the political role of Muslims during apartheid, often representing politically contested and more radical points of view in South Africa, as with the Islamists under the influence Said Qutb’s writings in the Muslim Brotherhood. In other ways, Muslims, especially among the youth, stood in support of anti-apartheid supporters, reflecting on the struggle against apartheid as jihad (Tayob 27).  While it is perhaps beyond the scope of this essay to address all of aspects of the resistance of apartheid, I include these examples to reflect on the varieties of ways in which religion acted as a form of resistance. The political shift in leadership in South Africa from the authoritarian state of the National Party to South Africa’s first democratic election under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, presents itself in a fascinating moment of, what might be described as the deconstruction of the South African Sate.
I will now briefly conclude with a brief case study on a particularly interesting instance of religious segregation in both the apartheid and post-apartheid eras that I think will be worth discussing in the context of this paper, which up till now has focused on the breaking down of the binary of religion in South African society, to show how the religious nationalism of the National Party has been constructed. It is the remains of racism in the period of post-apartheid South Africa that I now wish to address. The Lemba people represent an important social, cultural, political and religious ‘ethnic’ group in South Africa. The history of Lemba people in the context of apartheid represent a fascinating case study for the study of the intersection of the categories between race and religion, and how these categories have been reconstructed in a way that spells out the structural and racial violence of apartheid in a way that created an extreme situation of cultural marginalization. The Lemba are often remembered in popular media for their DNA tests proving their Caucasian ancestry, as well as several documentaries highlighting their perceived Jewish ethnic ancestry as one of the “lost tribes of Israel,” (Tamarkin 160). As Tamarkin states, it is important to recognize that “the postapartheid South African state is at once ‘nonracial’ and ‘multicultural’ enshrining an official commitment to liberal democracy unmarked by racial distinctions alongside political protection of cultural difference” (148). However, as Tamarkin argues the way in which the Lemba have been treated in the past represents a tremendous issue to the state of multiculturalism in South Africa, because of the way in which their racial heritage has prevented them from attaining self-determination in the apartheid political system, which marginalized them and classified them as part of other tribal groups in South Africa which clearly did not share the same identity of them (Tamarkin 158). Their fight for self determination in contemporary South Africa, based on the fact that they have not yet state received as a distinct cultural community (based on a policy that bases heritage off of language, and not of cultural determination in this way), is a clear sign of the logocentric and thus phonocentric legacy of South Africa. I hope this essay has shed some light on some of these issues, and has least pointed the way towards a greater understanding of the role of religion in the colonial processes of South Africa.





























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Derrida and Algerian Colonialism

A Fragile Binary:
Algerian Colonialism as a Case Study for Religion and Politics

The study of religion and politics is often recognized by scholars as a sub field of political science (Olson 639). As a part of a broader disciplinary category, it contributes a variety of methodological and theoretical approaches to the study of religion. Indeed, the categories of “religion” and “politics” often tend to be deeply connected concepts. In the past, scholars working in the fields of religious studies and political science tended to work exclusively in their own disciplines. However, in recent years there has been a transition between disciplines that usefully links both studies together in order to produce more critical and intelligent ways of understanding the roles played by “religion” and “politics” in society. It seems as though scholars in social sciences and humanities have been faster at implementing this process than political scientists, for example, who have been slower “to embrace the study of religion”(Olson 639). The evidence for this is apparent in the fields of political science and international relations, where scholars tend to view their disciplines as more suited to a secular framework in their respective disciplines (Abu-Nimer 492). Similarly, this is an issue that is reflected in much of the history of religious studies scholarship, where the concept of “religion” was often viewed as a unique category that existed outside of the traditional spheres of the social sciences and humanities (McCutcheon 611).
However, with the emergence of critical theory and postmodern thought in the study of religion, the political has been understood to be reflected in the concept of religion, which is often thought to be used a category of the political. The way in which the category of religion is framed, for example, whether as a government policy, category of identity or a subject of law, often reflects the extent to which religion is shaped by the political. In religious studies, there seems to have been a shift in the way in which scholarship approaches the intersection of religious and political realities. In the contemporary study of religion, for instance, many religious studies departments bring in different voices from a variety of disciplines to form a multidisciplinary approach to the study of religion, aimed at discussing how religion can be usefully studied as an aspect of political, social and cultural thought (one example is the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria). This is also meant to encourage critical debate between scholars, in order to develop a well-rounded community of academics engaged in the study of religion.
With these examples in mind, I will now turn my attention to the particular subject of this paper, which I believe is a significant point of reference for thinking about the relationship between religion and politics. In this paper, I am interested in exploring the relationship between French colonialism in Algeria and anti-semitism as a case study for understanding the study of religion and politics. What is the significance of the relationship between the colonization of Algeria and anti-semitism for the study of religion and politics? How do the concepts of religion and politics connect to the core themes of this particular era of colonial administration? I argue that the situation of colonialism in Algeria points towards the complexity of social, religious and cultural realities, directly challenging the neat binary opposition of the distinctions separating “religion” from “politics”. This case study reveals that in reality, it is difficult to separate the religious from the political, and shows how religion can be used as a category for power and control. Thus, in order to arrive at a more nuanced understanding of religion and politics, it is necessary to understand the variety of ways in which these categories can be constructed and implicated in each other. In order to discuss the case of Algeria, I will begin with an introduction to the legacy of Jacques Derrida, an Algerian Jew, whose work represents a tremendous challenge to power politics, and the legacy of Eurocentrism in philosophical and literary analysis.      
I believe that Jacques Derrida is a thinker whose thought plays a critical role in the development of theory and method in the study of religion. For example, Derrida’s theory of deconstruction is an important way of critiquing and challenging the construction of categories in the study of religion which, for example, frame religious studies as perhaps a solely theological endeavour, disconnected from the study of politics and society. While Derrida’s ideas are highly significant for thinking about a wide range themes in philosophy and literary theory, including the dynamics of power in philosophy, language and ethics, it is important to think about the context of his life, and the society in which he was born into, which played a highly contextual role in shaping Derrida’s ideas. For this reason, Derrida might be described as a scholar on the margins, as someone whose ideas are informed by a different and unique historical positioning of identity. Indeed, in the context of the imperial legacy of European culture, Algeria is often portrayed in a marginal way, as a colonial outpost of civilization, as a frontier on the periphery of culture.
As a Sephardic Jew, Derrida was born into a complex and shifting social, political and cultural system that reflected a community, culture and context in transition. In a way, the complexity of Derrida’s scholarship is a reflection of the Jewish experience in Algeria during the period of colonization. Indeed, the Jewish experience of the loss of citizenship in Algeria in 1943, and subsequently the loss of an identity, and what remains of this identity are constant themes throughout Derrida’s work. In effect, the experience of colonization had a profound impact on Derrida’s writing, especially the way in which Derrida thought and spoke about his relationship with French language and culture. Indeed, the traumatic reality of such an experience resonates deeply with themes of cultural and social alienation, and the use of writing as a particular method of self-expression to potentially reconcile these experiences within oneself.    
In any case, I argue that the colonization of Algeria has a profound significance for the way in which we think about the relationship between religion and politics. In the context of French colonial Algeria, it seems that the concept of religion is woven into the political organization of French Algerian society, pointing towards how religious identity can be used to determine political ideas such as citizenship, sovereignty and law. For the purposes of this paper, I will briefly highlight the history of French Algeria, focusing on the place of religion in the French colonial administration.
The colonization of Algeria by the French began in 1830, and ended with Algerian independence in 1962. As recounted at the beginning of Helene Cixous’s essay, “This Stranjew Body,” the colonization of Algeria was deeply imprinted on to the memory of Algerians:
How to recall, how to bring to mind, the month of July, 1830; it is so hot, it was yesterday; how not to recall the surge of the army, the 37, 000 men, armed by the ministry of war with a historical insight that permitted the opposition of “truth” to “errors” and promised to the soldiers a victoriy over the Turks, the Moors, and the others. It is a yesterday well protected by forgetfulness, that evening of July 4, when the army reached the plateau of El Bihar and the slopes that dominate the Fort L’Empereur to the West (52).
The colonial legacy of the French empire in Algeria reflects a complex period of political, cultural and social transformation in French society. The arrival of the French in Algeria was met with a great degree of resistance among the local Arab populations, including the Muslim resistance leader Emir Abdelkader, who successfully fought off the French for a significant period of time. In general, this period is characterized by a significant amount of  violence and tension between the French Army and the Indigenous resistance. The violence permeated into the public sphere, and resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of civilian lives. According to Sessions, this was mainly the result of the spread of diseases, rather than the result of the conflict itself (77). Overall, similar to other colonial situations, the conflict created a fracture in Algerian society, and one might argue that it created the conditions for an identity complex in the postcolonial period.
In any case, in order to maintain France’s authority and legitimacy to govern in Algeria, it was necessary to establish French culture as the most dominant cultural horizon (Roberts 12). This was maintained through a system of governance that created the conditions for the political involvement of the Jews of Algeria, as an expression of rights, especially at the local municipal and administrative levels of government (Roberts 24). This can be considered to be a part of the broader strategy of the French colonial regime to assimilate the people of the Algerian colony into French culture and society. According to Roberts, the use of Jewish identity (indeed, the utilization of the Jews as a political experiment, and a category to be thought with) to accomplish this goal was an important aspect of the process of assimilation (3). Hence, the Crémieux Decree was an a significant instrument for the assimilation of Algerian Jews into French society. I think that this is an important example that explains the argument that religion is often used in very political ways to influence power and politics in society.  
The French colonial period was a particularly turbulent and violent era. Throughout this period, French society experienced broad social and political transformations, rooted in the shifting political influence of French government, which itself underwent a variety of transformations and political shifts in leadership: from the Second Republic under the rule of Napoleon Bonaparte, to the decline of the French empire, the reconstitution of the monarchy, and eventually the formation of the Third Republic. During World War II, the French government was primarily subjected to the influence of the Vichy Regime, which under the leadership of Phillipe Petain, was in an alliance with the Nazi regime in Germany. The Vichy Regime had a major impact on the Jews of Algeria when it effectively revoked the Crémieux Decree which afforded Jews and “Berbers” in Algeria French citizenship.
Nevertheless, the anti-semitism of this era is deeply engrained in the cultural memory of the Jews in Algeria. While the Holocaust is presented as the pinnacle of anti-semitism in European history, it is nonetheless important to make the connection to how the cultural genocide of the Jews was also experienced across a variety of cultural contexts, and it is from this perspective of the margins that affords a particularly rich understanding of how these historical events unfolded.  For Jews, the period of the French Vichy Regime is marked by a traumatic loss of their cultural identity. As Roberts states, the Crémieux Decree represents a central theme for any study of the Jews of Algeria, because it reflects a deep moment of fragility (1). this paper, I have discussed the relationship between religion and politics, and how this represents a complex area of intellectual discussion and analysis. The case study of Algerian colonialism reveals that the concept of religion can used as a political category to support the dominant ideological discourse, in this case, the strategy of assimilation of the Jews into French culture and society. I have also discussed the work of Jacques Derrida, who I think contributes a tremendous resource to the analysis of religion and politics. The deconstruction of this relationship shows that religion and politics are often constructed in reference to one another.


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