The New Cold War
Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State

by Mark Juergensmeyer
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. 292 pp. .


Reviewed by Daniel Pipes

Middle East Quarterly
September 1994

http://www.meforum.org/1087/the-new-cold-war

Juergensmeyer, a sociologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, means by "religious nationalism" what others call fundamentalism; and, as his title suggests, he sees similarities between the old Marxism-Leninism challenge to the Western order and this new one. In both cases, the confrontation is "global in its scope, binary in its opposition, occasionally violent, and essentially a difference of ideologies." Of the many religious nationalisms, the Islamic one stands out by virtue of its extent and the depth of its hold.

While Juergensmeyer holds that secular Westerners underestimate this threat to their way of life, 2 he also believes that "a grudging respect" might develop between the two sides over time. He then goes further and claims that "there may be some aspects of the religious nationalists' agenda that we cannot only live with but also admire." Key to our all getting along, he states is for secular Westerners to change our attitude and respect "at least some aspects of their positions."

In other words, Juergensmeyer first identifies the fundamentalists as the new enemy, then he goes on to propose at least a partial capitulation to them. In short, if fundamentalists present us with a new ideological battle, the academy is offering up the same old advice of appeasement.

Related Topics:  Daniel Pipes  |  September 1994 MEQ receive the latest by email: subscribe to the free mef mailing list To receive the full, printed version of the Middle East Quarterly, please see details about an affordable subscription. This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL.